POST MORTEM
by ThisIsTrueImmortality
Summary: A return to the Olympic Peninsula is the last thing Agent Dana Scully wants. Her memories of her and Mulder's last experience there are no encouragement for a second trip. Little does Scully know, even more bizarre memories are soon to be made there...
1. Chapter 1 Now?

**Author's Note: Well, here we are again! But this time I have a very unusual to story to present to my friends here on FanFiction! I doubt there's another story like this on the entire website! Whether or not that's a good thing is yet to be seen...But I digress. I hope, as always, that everyone gets a thorough kick out of this story. It's mostly humorous with a little sobriety stuck in there. It's a dry kind of humor, though, so if it isn't obvious enough please let me know. **

**Here it goes! Have fun!**

1. Now?

Dana Scully looked up from the pile of documents as her partner walked in. "You look tired," Mulder remarked, hanging his coat on the back of his chair. "Have you been here since six?"

Sighing, Scully tucked away another report. "There's so much to catch up on. It's unbelievable how these things accumulate over time."

"Well, we were gone for a couple weeks. Life goes on, even if we aren't in the office."

"Too true." Another stack of paper joined the first on the pile to her right. "Have you got those profiles copied for our own use?"

"Yeah, they're right here. Scully," Mulder said, handing her the manilla folder, "how would you feel about taking up another case?"

Scully raised an eyebrow. "Now?" They'd just gotten back from a rough investigation of repeated homicides in New York.

"I know it's short notice, but I only got wind of it today."

"Mulder--"

He put up a hand to stall her comments. "It really has me intrigued, Scully. A woman was killed two days ago under very unusual circumstances."

_What else is new?_ Was Scully's first thought, but she shunted it aside. That was the wrong kind of calloused mindset, one she didn't want to indulge. "What 'unusual circumstances'?"

"A couple of high-schoolers found her body under a bridge. The body had been," he pulled out a sheet of paper and quoted, "'mauled, perhaps by a cougar or a bear.'"

"So, why is that unusual? Hikers--"

"Because in the autopsy record, the doctor has a different opinion than whoever wrote this report."

Slowly, she was getting to the bottom of what Mulder really wanted to say. "He does?"

"Yes. And I think I trust the doctor over the policeman who typed this up."

They both stared at one another for a moment. Scully went back to sorting her files. "So, what does the doctor think?"

"He thinks the woman was murdered."

"Someone left the body out for wild animals, to cover up evidence?"

"Something like that." Mulder smiled, leaning against her desk, the fire of a new case in his eyes. "What do you say, Scully?"

"Mulder, I'm not sure this case is X-Files material." With a thump, she pushed the pile of paperwork to the side. "All you've said so far is that a woman may have been murdered and her body was left under a bridge. That doesn't sound like the kind of work you usually pursue."

"There _is_ a twist, of course."

She almost groaned. Her back was still sore from the last plane ride. "What is it?"

"The doctor in charge of the autopsy noted some strange bite marks on the victim's throat, arms, and wrists. He couldn't figure out what the bite marks were, until he had them checked by a colleague." Chills went through Scully's spine. Mulder leaned forward more, making sure he had her full attention. "This woman was gnawed on by a human, Scully."

In spite of herself, Scully was interested. Even they didn't hear about many potential homicides like this. "Where did this take place?"

Smiling ruefully, Mulder ran a hand through his hair. "I was hoping you wouldn't ask that."

"Why? Where is it?"

"The Olympic Peninsula."

Scully gave him 'The Look'. The look that clearly said exactly what she thought about going to the Olympic Peninsula. _Again_. "Our first experience there wasn't enough for you?"

"Look, I know we have some awful memories from that trip, and if I had my druthers, we wouldn't be going there. But we can't ignore this case, Scully. We've encountered this kind of thing before, you remember the woman we found up in New Jersey."

How could she forget? That had been one of their early adventures together. "Mulder--" She caught the hopeful look on his face and sighed. It was so hard to disappoint that face. "_Where_ in the Olympic Peninsula?"

"In the tiny town of Forks, Washington. The town with the most rainfall in the entire United States. The whole town's stirred up about this case."

That was what always annoyed Scully about small towns. No matter the gravity or the gruesomeness of a murder, small town inhabitants were all over it. She wished they had something better to do with their time than gossip about something as depressing as a brutal killing. Well, that was the nature of humanity; on a whole, humans couldn't resist morbid topics.

"So is that a yes or a no, Scully?"

A murder, with possible cannabalism involved. A tiny town, in the Olympic Peninsula, a place she had no desire to visit a second time. Her experience with the logging camp...not one she wanted to relive.

But she _was_ curious.

"We can investigate it, I suppose. How soon are we leaving?"

Mulder grinned, and patted her on the shoulder. "Thanks, Scully. This afternoon."


	2. Chapter 2 When?

2. When?

"Why must we always be traveling across the country to pursue cases?"

Mulder looked up from his copy of the daily news, their carry-on bags resting on the seat between them. "I guess we're always at the wrong place at the wrong time. If we operated anywhere but D.C., we'd probably have more cases than we could handle."

"They always do seem to happen somewhere else," murmured Scully. "So, what do we know about the woman?"

"The autopsy report is that she was a white caucasian female, twenty-three years old. Her name was Allyson Pratchett, and she wasn't from Forks. She was just passing through on her way to Portland."

"Was she a hiker?"

Mulder shook his head. "She had a car and had been staying at the local motel. The receptionist was the last person to see her alive."

"So we have her driver's license? Her insurance cards?"

"Yeah, the police have all the evidence they could find. She was heading to a college in Portland to visit her sister, the receptionist said."

Scully stared out the plane window, musing. If Allyson Pratchett had only been passing through Forks, why would anyone murder her? The killing must have been a random act of violence from an unbalanced individual. "You think the murderer is a serial killer, Mulder?"

"I don't know, it's too early to tell. What I do know is that there have been killings like this around Forks before."

Scully frowned. Forks was a small town, out of the way of large cities where most crimes were committed. "That's unusual. More of the same kind of killings, with the animal markings?"

"The human markings, Scully," Mulder corrected her. "Yeah, the same kind: abandoned bodies either mauled or gnawed upon."

"Hm."

"I think it's going to be one of our more interesting cases, don't you?"

"Like you said: it's hard to tell now."

"Oh, come on, Scully," Mulder said, the fire back in his eyes.

"This could be just another serial killer, Mulder. Why has it caught your interest so quickly?"

"This case reeks of paranormal activity, that's why." Mulder leaned back in his plane seat. "Repeated killings of the same nature around the same area of the country, with victims being brutally murdered and left out in the wild. What kind of serial killer leaves his victims under bridges, without even trying to bury them?"

"So now you're saying you think it could be an animal killing these people?" asked Scully, at a loss to what Mulder's strange mind might be contemplating.

"I don't know," Mulder sighed, putting his arms over his head. "I think I'll try and catch some sleep before we land."

***_subliminal message 1--deep throat!_***

There was a police officer waiting to meet them at the Portland airport. After they had reclaimed all their baggage, he introduced himself. "I'm Charlie Swan, from the Forks Police Department," the man said, shaking hands firmly with them both. "Good to have you here, uh--"

"I'm Agent Fox Mulder," Mulder supplied, "and this is my partner, Dr. Dana Scully."

"Good to have you both," finished Chief Swan. He seemed a little uncomfortable with his job of greeting them. "Um, I've got you a car waiting out front. Did you want to go to a hotel and clean up, or head straight out to the station?"

Mulder looked at Scully. He always gave her the honor of deciding whether or not to jump right to business; she was, after all, the woman, and might feel the need to wash up before diving into the case. "We'll review our notes and meet you at the Police Station tomorrow morning," Scully said. Hygienic preferences aside, she wanted to organize the autopsy reports and the other documents they had brought with them.

"Great," Officer--Chief, Scully corrected herself--Swan said. "How does 8:30 sound? My daughter should leave for school before then."

"That sounds good to me," Mulder said, and took Scully's arm. "Come on, we've got a car to catch."


	3. Chapter 3 Another One?

3. Another One?

The alarm on Scully's bedside table began to ring, seeming to drill a hole in her skull. She hit the button and stretched, yawning. Her dreams of the night before had left her drained; she'd run for what seemed like miles in her nightmare, running from some monster. Still, she rolled out of bed, grabbed her firearm off the table, and headed to her clothes bag. She'd brought a couple of suits, unsure of the length of this investigation. As she pulled one on and brushed her hair, four quick knocks at her door informed her that Mulder was awake and ready to jump into the case.

"One minunte," she called, straightening her suit. She would never tell Mulder this, but she hated for him to see her after she'd just gotten out of bed. Who could be expected to look polished and professional as soon as they'd woken up? But she went to the door and pulled it open.

"Morning," said Mulder, smiling. Aside from a stack of paperwork, he'd also brought two paper plates piled high with yogurt, fruit, and--to Scully's secret delight--glazed donuts. "The breakfast buffet downstairs was a little too noisy for my liking," he said, closing the door with his foot and sticking a stack of the papers into his mouth so he could secure the lock again. "So I fot I'd vring you froom service."

"Thanks", said Scully, furtively eyeing the donuts. She would quickly claim those...

"Here are the reports on the case," Mulder said, throwing the documents on the small table in the center of the hotel room. "I just got these from the online files. Apparently Allyson Pratchett had no crazy relations here, no ex-boyfriends, no one that had any grudge against her. If this killing was in fact a murder, there doesn't seem to be any reason why she was picked for the victim."

"Serial killers don't need personal reasons to kill people, Mulder." Scully suppressed another yawn and went to the tiny coffee maker on the counter. She scooped heaps of black coffee into the recepticle, listening to Mulder pontificate about the case.

"But just think, Scully. Why would this killer pick Allyson Pratchett for his next victim? Was she in the wrong place at the wrong time, or did he grab her right out of her hotel room? From these reports, she wasn't much of a party-goer or a drinker. And these other people that were killed near Forks in the same manner..." Scully heard shuffling papers. "There's no defining trait to these victims. A vacuum-cleaner salesman, a high school honor student, a football player? There's not even a consistent gender or hair color to go on."

"That's odd." Scully frowned as she filled the coffee pot full of water. "Are they all from the same class of people? Are they all middle class?"

"No. There's one victim--" Mulder shuffled his papers around again, "A fifty-seven year-old man who was a lawyer, and he made about 500,000 dollars a year."

"Hmm. Then how can we be sure it is a murder? How do we not know there's some animal out in the Hoh Rainforest that isn't killing these people?"

"I've never heard of an animal that would drag a body under a bridge."

Sighing, Scully turned from the coffee maker. "Let's eat breakfast first before we dive in, all right?"

For the first time that morning, Mulder seemed to really look at her. "All right," he finally said, and pulled up one of the chairs around the small table. "These are really good," he said, brandishing one of the donuts.

"Great." Scully took the chair opposite her partner and opened the yogurt container on her plate. She really wanted to dive into the donuts, but refrained out of ladylike delicacy. "So, why were you up so early?" she asked Mulder. "It's only now just seven."

"I decided to get a head start on the case. And I wanted some donuts before all the cheerleaders from last night's tournament descended upon the breakfast buffet." Mulder's eyes twinkled as he scarfed up the last of the donut.

Scully had to smile. No matter how angry, tired, or frantic she felt, Mulder's sense of humor never failed to remind her that the world was not such a horrible place. If a person like her partner existed in it, how could any place be all bad?

Just then her phone vibrated in her pocket. Scully took the call. "Hello?"

"Dr. Scully?" The voice was unfamiliar to her, but she had a feeling this masculine baritone was part of the Forks Police Department.

"Yes?" Mulder stared at her over his bagel. He mouthed, "Cops," at Scully.

"Dr. Scully, this is Officer Jenkins with the Forks City Police. I thought you would like to be informed of the discovery of a second victim just outside the city limits at four o'clock this morning."

"A second victim?" Mulder's eyebrows reached his hairline as Scully repeated the officer's words aloud.

"Yes, ma'am. The woman was found right outside Forks, near the Quileute Indian Reservation. Chief Swan would, um, appreciate it if you would come down to the reservation earlier than he had planned."

"Of course." Scully was already standing and gathering her things. Mulder rose, too, waving a donut quizzically at her. She shook her head at him; there was no time to eat if a second killing had taken place. "How does 7:45 sound?"

"That'll be fine, Doctor. Thank you."

"See you then, Officer."

"Another killing, so soon after the first?" Mulder asked as they exited the lobby. "Scully, that means the killer is still in Forks!"

"We don't know if there is a killer, Mulder. The woman was found near a reservation, what if an animal--"

"I'll bet you anything this woman bears the same markings as the last!"

"Let's not jump to conclusions, Mulder, please." Scully got into the passenger seat of Mulder's Ford. "This woman might not have anything to do with the other victim."

"So what, _another_ serial killer decides to strike Forks only four days after the last one? That doesn't even make any sense!"

_"We don't know if it is a serial killer!" _ It was only their first day on the case and already Scully regretted letting Mulder talk her into coming. The Olympic Peninsula held too many potential headaches for one woman to withstand.


	4. Chapter 4 Superstition?

4. Superstition?

When Scully stepped out of the car, she stepped into chaos. Policemen were swarming a small ditch off a cliffside road which dropped swiftly off to a sharp angle. She had to take her heels off just to climb to the crime scene. She heard Mulder scrambling down behind her. The area had been roped off with yellow tape bearing the words _crime scene, do not cross_, but that hadn't stopped several boys with dark hair and tanned skin from entering the marked off area. There was also an older man in a wheelchair present, a man who clearly was not part of the police force.

"Excuse me," Scully said, pushing past two or three policemen until she spotted Chief Swan. "Chief?"

Chief Swan looked up from the plastic bag he had been examining. He tossed the bag into his car and came to greet them. "Dr. Scully, Agent Mulder. I'm sorry to have woken you up, but I thought you'd want to see this."

"You didn't wake me up," Scully said. She figured it was best just to crack down to business. "Has the body been removed?"

"Yes, the ambulance took it away about an hour ago. It should be undergoing an autopsy right now." Rubbing his eyes, the chief sighed. "The woman was Naomi Brooks, forty years old, and she was a Makah Indian coming to visit one of her cousins here at the Quileute reservation."

"I see." Mulder stepped forward. "Who discovered the body, Chief?"

"I did," called one of the Indian boys, a tall young man with beefy arms and a cool demeanor. Scully wasn't sure she liked the look of him, but pushed such unprofessional thoughts aside.

"This is Sam Uley," said Chief Swan, and a very uncomfortable look came over his face. Before Scully could puzzle out this change in expression the boy had stepped over to them.

Sam came forward and sized up both Mulder and Scully. "Who are you?"

"I'm Agent Dana Scully," said Scully, "and this is my partner, Agent Mulder. Am I to understand you were the one who discovered Ms. Books?"

"Yes, I did," said Sam, a shadow falling across his face. "I offered my statement to Chief Swan already. Is there anything else I should do?"

Mulder intervened. "No, a statement is all. But would you mind telling me what happened, Sam?"

Sam's hulking frame drooped slightly as he started his tale. "I came down this road about ten past four and saw something lying on the side of the road. I didn't think anything about it, really, until--well--I saw..." He looked to Chief Swan for reassurance. The chief nodded. "I saw..." Sam swallowed, not out of queasiness, but out of anger, Scully noted. "I saw something move across the road, right over there." He pointed to a piece of cliff on the other side of the road. "I thought it was a man, but I couldn't be sure. Anyway, I looked at the roadside again and could tell that there was a woman lying there."

"Did you see anything else around the crime scene?" asked Mulder, staring intently at the young man's face.

Sam shook his head. "No, I just saw that one...man. I wanted to chase after him, but I thought I might be able to help Mrs. Brooks." His fists clenched. "Well, obviously, there was nothing I could do."

Nodding, Mulder hesitated. "I don't mean to be rude, but--why were you out at four o'clock in the morning, anyway?"

"My--my car broke down."

"Really? Where is it?"

"Back in the woods," answered Sam evenly. "I had walked about half a mile before I found Mrs. Brooks."

"Okay." Mulder didn't look convinced. "So, what did you do after you tried to help Mrs. Brooks?"

"I called for help, and when nobody answered, I called the police."

Scully stared hard at Sam. She had the overwhelming feeling that there was something the young man was withholding, some piece of information. But why would Sam do that? He seemed genuinely upset by the woman's death, and it would greatly surprise Scully if it turned out he was the killer. With that nagging feeling tugging on her mind, she watched the man in the wheelchair roll up to them.

"Is there a problem here, Charlie?" asked the man, his weathered face crinkled in concern. Scully noticed that he had rolled up to sit next to Sam, facing her and Mulder.

"No, Billy, there isn't," said Chief Swan, sounding a little irritated. "Agent Mulder was just asking Sam some questions about his discovery of the body."

"Agent?" The man's, Billy's, eyes narrowed. "You mean from the FBI?"

"Yes, sir," said Scully, "we were called here to investigate the murders occurring in Forks."

"Well, this isn't Forks," said Billy roughly. "So what are you doing here, Agent Mulder?"

"Billy," said Chief Swan warningly.

Mulder looked at Billy with an unreadable expression. "This is the sight of another killing, Mister--?"

"Black," said Billy.

"Mr. Black. We got a call from the police this morning asking us to come here and take a look around."

"I told you we didn't need an investigation," Billy said angrily to Chief Swan. "The FBI? Honestly, Charlie."

Straightening, Chief Swan put his superiority of height to good use over the man in the wheelchair. "Billy, I am the Police Chief of Forks, and I'm going to do what I think is best for this town. Now, if you have a problem with that, I'd appreciate it if you would keep your opinions and your superstitions to yourself."

"Superstitions?" Mulder's eyes traveled from Chief Swan to Sam. "What superstitions?"

Both men acted like they hadn't heard him. "I told you, we think we know who's causing this trouble," Billy said in a very low voice. "Sam--"

"Will do what the law tells him to, all right, Billy?" Scully had to hand it to the Chief--he knew how to handle interlopers. He stared at Billy till the man looked away, and then he challenged Sam with his eyes, too. "All right?" When neither answered, Chief Swan got in Sam's line of sight, forcing him to look at him. "All right, Sam?"

"Yes, sir," muttered Sam, but Scully thought she saw the barest flicker of a lie behind his dark eyes.

"Good." Chief Swan sat back on his heels, running a hand through his hair. "I didn't want to have to do that, but you two haven't let up since my men got here. I don't want any more intervention from La Push, okay? I know we can't interfere with Quileute customs, but this woman was not killed on the reservation, so it's our responsibility to investigate her murder."

Although both of them nodded, Scully knew they only did so out of grudging respect for the police chief. Mulder and Scully shared a look of bewilderment. Why did the people of the reservation protest so strongly against police involvement in a murder of one of their own? Could it be Sam and Billy were in league to try and intimidate the police out of investigating a murder they had committed? Scully noted with a tinge of black humor that Billy Black wouldn't have been able to kill anybody and get away with it without some kind of engine to turn his wheelchair into a horseless carriage. But Sam...Sam was young and strong. He might follow Billy's orders, no matter what they might entail.

"If that's the way it's gonna be, Charlie," said Billy, "then I guess I've got no reason to hang around here." He gripped the wheels on his chair and pushed, backing away from them. And, Charlie..." he paused, searching for words. "I hope we're wrong, Charlie. I really do."

"See you, Chief Swan," said Sam, turning and rejoining the group of boys on the edge of the crime scene.


	5. Chapter 5 Who?

5. Who?

The chief seemed to honestly regret the way he'd had to put off the two interlopers. He stared morosely at Billy's wheelchair as it bumped along the rutty road. Soon after Billy's departure, the group of younger Quileutes left as well. "Chief Swan, we didn't mean to cause tension--" Scully began, but the chief cut her off.

"It's not your problem, Dr. Scully." He glared at the boys' retreating figures. "It's theirs. I don't know what they expect me to do..." he left off muttering and turned back to them. "We found some minimal evidence around the body, a little blood and the woman's purse. Would you like to see it?"

Mulder and Scully nodded their assent. As they headed toward the police cars Mulder asked, "What kind of superstitions were you referring to, Chief Swan?"

Scully nearly rolled her eyes; _here we go_, she thought, anticipating the slew of hypotheses that would follow Mulder's research of Quileute legends. Chief Swan shifted his shoulders self-consciously. "They're just campfire stories, Agent Mulder. Nothing you people have to worry about."

"I'd like to know, just out of curiosity."

"Well...all right." Chief Swan looked supremely embarassed. "I can't believe I have to tell an FBI agent about this. The Quileutes have superstitions surrounding a particular group of people in Forks. They--mistakenly, I'm sure--think that these people are responsible for these violent deaths."

"That doesn't sound so superstitious to me," put in Scully. "If the group of people is a gang, or--"

Snorting, Chief Swan interrupted her. "Dr. Scully, there aren't _gangs_ in Forks, Washington. A couple kids with spray paint, maybe, but not the kind of gang you're talking about, not organized crime. No, the Quileutes think these murders have been committed by one family, and for completely bogus reasons."

A family? Scully wished Chief Swan would spit out the Quileutes' true belief about the deaths. "Chief Swan, if you're afraid of us laughing at you because of these superstitions, worry no more."

"Fine, then." The chief stooped over to retrieve the evidence bags from his cruiser. "The Quileutes think the Cullen family is responsible for these killings, which is ridiculous, if you ask me. There's no nicer man than Carlisle Cullen in this whole town, and his kids--" he leaned back out and handed a pair of gloves each to Scully and Mulder, "his kids are as well-behaved as you could hope from adopted teenagers. The whole idea is ridiculous."

From the way he cocked his head to the side, Scully could tell Mulder was intrigued. "You said the father's name is Carlisle Cullen? All his kids are--?"

"Adopted, yeah. He and his wife adopted them years ago."

"How many of them are there?"

"Five. Seven, counting Dr. Cullen and his wife."

"That's a lot of adopted teenagers." Scully wished Mulder would drop the subject. What did this family have to do with the killings?

"I thought they'd be a lot of trouble when they moved in a couple years back, but they're good kids. And they're certainly not murderers. Anyway, there's the best evidence we could scrape up." He handed the bag with the purse in it to Scully and the bag with the blood samples to Mulder. Scully rotated the purse in her hands, examining it for any traces of blood or anything else relevant to the case. The feminine side of her mind catalogued the off-brand label on the front and the faux leather casing, but the analytical side of her mind couldn't see anything too interesting about the purse. A moment later she held out her hand for the blood samples.

"Are you going to analyze this blood in a lab?" asked Mulder, hastily passing off the blood to Scully.

Chief Swan shrugged apologetically. "If we took it to Portland or Seattle we might be able to get a thorough testing, but not here. We had to create a makeshift autopsy lab in the city hospital."

"Who performed the autopsies?" asked Scully, giving the evidence back to the chief. "I'd like to speak with him."

"Dr. Snow did. He's one of the surgeons at the hospital."

"So I'll be able to find him there?"

Nodding, Chief Swan said, "He's there now. Do you want to go and see him?"

"I think so."

After Chief Swan scribbled some directions on a napkin for them, Mulder and Scully set off for the hospital. Scully scanned the reports on the Brooks death (and occasionally called out directions) while Mulder drove. "Seems like everything in Forks is only a couple miles away, at most," remarked Mulder, after the last set of directions.

Scully smiled and paused before answering. "I think it's rather convenient, don't you? We'd get a lot more investigating done if our hub was somewhere this small."

"Scully, we wouldn't have investigating to do if we lived in a town this small." Then Mulder laughed. "That was really ironic of me, wasn't it?"

"Here's the hospital," said Scully, suppressing a laugh.

"Pretty nice for a rural area," said Mulder, as they pulled into the parking lot.

The lobby of the hopsital smelled like every other generic medical facility. Scully looked around at the blandly-painted walls and the plastic plants with an experienced eye. Mulder walked up to the receptions desk and engaged the woman working there. In a moment he returned with the information they needed. "Dr. Snow isn't in surgery right now, so he should be free to talk to us," he recited, clicking the pen in his coat pocket. "Room 205, his office."

Scully rearranged the papers in her hands, falling in step behind Mulder. The stack was several inches thick and hard to contain for one woman. The rest of the stack nearly toppled off the others she was trying to rearrange. "You want me to take some of those?" asked Mulder, glancing at her.

"No, thanks, I've got it," said Scully, clenching the papers tightly in her hands. She would not be mastered by a feeble load of paperwork; she was a trained FBI agent, she could handle it. However, if the reports got mixed up and disorganized, it would take a lot more time to put them back together. "Dr. Snow must be one of the older surgeons here," said Scully, still wrestling the pile of paper. "I doubt the authorities would entrust this kind of autopsy to a less experienced doctor."

"Maybe he was the only one they could call up at four o'clock in the morning," said Mulder. He was walking slightly ahead of Scully, peering at room numbers as he went.

Scully noticed the steady of trickle of nurses and orderlies originating from a doorway out of her sight. "What time is it now?"

Mulder checked his watch. "About eight nine-thirty, ten o'clock." He began to walk faster. "Come on, let's hurry. We should talk to Dr. Snow before he has to go in for another surgery."

"Of course." Scully barely caught the pile of papers before it slipped sideways out of her arms. To her relief, Mulder didn't notice.

A group of nurses passed between her and Mulder, two of them jostling her as they parted to let her through. Scully stared past them to find Mulder again, but he had disappeared. Frowning, Scully looked down at the paper on the top of her stack, unconsciously picking up speed. If Mulder was already in Dr. Snow's office, he would need this document to record the unofficial autopsy reports. He should have waited for her. Honestly, did she have to do all the logical thinking in this partnership? Dr. Snow might not even--

Her thoughts were interrupted as she slammed into a wall of white that was one of the doctors emerging from an office to her right. Scully flew backward and fell onto the tile floor, her papers slinging themselves in every direction. A faint pain spread along her legs and back, and she put a hand to her head, which had hit the tile at a lesser speed than the rest of her but hurt nonetheless. How in the world had she run into someone with that much force?

"Oh!" A man's voice exclaimed from above her. "I am so sorry!"

"No, that's all right," said Scully, getting to her knees and grabbing at the fallen papers in her near radius.

"Here, let me help you." The doctor knelt and started to help her with the papers, his hands deftly gathering up the sheets.

"No, really, you don't have to--" Scully lifted her head and got her first good look at the doctor. She felt her mouth pop ajar.

The doctor was the most handsome man she had ever seen, and considering the amount of exposure she had to men, that was saying something. Under the harsh hospital lights, the man resembled an animated marble statue. His skin was white, his hair just a few shades darker. His facial structure was pleasing, alluring, the perfect mixture of bone and collagen. The most statuesque part of him was his physique; Scully guessed him to be around 25 or 26, based on his musculature. As he knelt on the floor to help her, Scully could only stare at him.

Had her college day-dreams of a beautiful doctor just given birth to a delusion? Or was this man _real_?

"Are you all right?" The man smiled at her, and Scully nearly died. "I'm so sorry, I didn't see you."

"Oh--" Scully mentally pinched herself, "no, that's really all right. I didn't see you, either." If she had, she would have undoubtedly run into someone else due to excessive staring.

"I hope these weren't terribly important," said the man, holding the papers out to her. Scully rose from her crouch and accepted the papers, her mind still desperately sticking itself back together.

The mess of papers in her hands brought Scully down from wherever her common sense had gone. "Well, they were organized," she said, sighing. "But I'll get them back in order."

The man looked closely at her, drawing Scully's attention to his eyes. They were a strange color, a rich amber. "Forgive me if I seem rude, but who are you?"

"I'm Dana Scully." Scully switched the papers to her left hand and offered him her doctor accepted her hand with an icy one of his own and shook it in an utterly professional manner. Scully's eyes did not miss the glint of gold on his ring finger. "Oh, no."

"Are you all right?"

"Yes," Scully had to invent wildly, "I just remembered I forgot something in the car, that's all."

Smiling, the doctor said, "Well, I'm sorry to have interrupted your day. It was nice meeting you, Miss Scully."

"You, too. Thank you for these." She waved the papers and stared in dismay at his back as he walked away. The perfect man...and of course he was already married. It occurred to Scully, as she struggled to repair the damage the doctor's presence had wreaked on her senses, that although she had introduced herself, he had not told her his name.


	6. Chapter 6 Really?

6. Really?

"Scully, where have you been?" Mulder demanded in a whisper, pulling up a chair for her. "I've had to sit here and make small talk for ten minutes until the professional could arrive!"

"Sorry, Mulder. I got trounced." Although she held her papers aloft as explanation, Scully wondered what Mulder's reaction would have been if she had said, 'I got trounced by a doctor who made my day by running into me and who, incidentally, is so gorgeous he looks like he could be Hermes incarnate.' If they had been anywhere but in the middle of an investigation, she might have actually spoken those exact words. However, all she did was sit in the chair and shake the hand of the decidedly less thrilling doctor before her.

Dr. Snow, by Scully's estimation, was around fifty-five and wore the typical clothes of an upper middle-class surgeon. He had a forgettable face, but Scully thought her perspective was perhaps skewed due to the greek god she had just met in the hallway. "Hello, I'm Dana Scully."

Dr. Snow nodded. "Nice to meet you, Dr. Scully. Your partner has told me a little about you. I understand that you've had some experience with these kind of unusual autopsies?"

"Yes, I've worked with the forensics teams at the FBI on several cases."

"Good, because this case..." Dr. Snow frowned at the documents on his desk. "It's quite disturbing, frankly."

"Couldn't be more disturbing than--" Mulder cut himself off at Scully's glance. He cleared his throat and settled further into his chair. "I'll just let the expert handle this, shall I?"

Scully turned to Dr. Snow. "Have you completed a thorough examination of the body?"

"As thorough as we could be. You have to understand, Doctor, that we're a small hospital. We don't have the full facilities of a forensics lab."

"I do understand." Scully set her documents on Dr. Snow's desk and began to sort them, looking for the autopsy reports. "Chief Swan already gave me several papers on your results, but I haven't had time to review them. Would you mind summing it up for me?"

"Not at all. As soon as we started the autopsy, I knew we would have a horrific examination ahead of us." Dr. Snow shook his head. "Even before we made any incisions we could tell the body had been mutilated, the arms and neck especially so. I thought for sure that there would have been blood all over the crime scene, but Officer Sparks told me that there was hardly any blood where the woman had been lying. As the autopsy continued, I realized that nearly all the woman's bones had been broken. Fortunately, her time of death occurred very early on into the mutilation, so she hardly felt anything."

"Well, we take what we can get," Mulder muttered, appearing faintly green.

"Other than those very obvious injuries," Dr. Snow said, "we later noted some strange bite marks on the woman's neck and wrists, even one on her leg. I documented those more completely on the official reports."

"These bite marks," said Scully, "did they look animal or human?"

"This is where it really turns bizarre," said Dr. Snow. "I assume you know about the other woman thas was found here a few days ago?"

"Yes, we're actually here to investigate that murder," said Mulder.

"I thought so. Well, this woman that we just examined...she carries the same marks."

Scully leaned forward, feeling the familiar sensation of heightened interest that meant she was finally drawn into a case. "You mean these bites were human in origin, as well?"

Uneasily, Dr. Snow nodded. "Yes, definitely. They were the same in every way...they came from the same human."


	7. Chapter 7 Suspects?

**Author's Note: Chapter Seven! Although there hasn't been much action in the story yet, I'd like everyone to know that these first chapters are buildup for more exciting ones. I like to get a little background and plot development going before I jump right in to the guns and disasters. ;)**

**Enjoy!**

7. Suspects?

"Very informative," Mulder said.

"Not very," answered Scully. "I still need to check these official reports."

"I didn't mean the medical jargon, Scully, I meant the fact that both these women were chewed on by the same human. A male, Dr. Snow hypothesized, from somewhere between eighteen and thirty. That narrows down our list of suspects, doesn't it?"

"_What_ list of suspects? We don't even have an official profile for this case. We don't know this killer's patterns, his motivation, anything."

"At least you admit there _is _a killer, now," said Mulder, grinning.

"Mulder, this is not amusing in the least! We need to collect more information on this case."

"Well, maybe we should start with the local hearsay," Mulder suggested, as they pulled back into the parking lot of their hotel. "The Quileutes seem to think these woman were killed by the Cullen family. Maybe we should build up some facts about them and go from there."

"I guess it's the only lead we've got so far."

Mulder stared out the window of the car, his hand absentmindedly twisting the key in the ignition. "These killings are awfully clean, aren't they?"

Not for the first time, Scully wondered if her partner was all there. "The bodies certainly aren't."

"No, no, I meant the crime scene. No evidence worth mentioning, no huge amounts of blood. There hasn't been anything to go on but the body itself. Doesn't that strike you as odd?"

Scully frowned and opened her car door, stepping out into the dull grey parking lot which matched the pewter sky. "Now that you make a cohesive point of it, yes, it does seem strange. You have to wonder where all the blood has gone."

"Hm." Mulder slung his arm out of the way of the closing car door and marched up the stairs to his room. Scully followed him, her mind dwelling on the observation her partner had just made.

Where had all the blood from the victims gone? It couldn't evaporate, and it certainly was not still in those shredded corpses that Dr. Snow had shown her. And yet half the blood in a human's body did not just disappear--it had to go somewhere, and discovering where that blood had gone might be the key to the whole case. Sometimes Mulder's shrewdness terrified her.

And then, as she made her way to his hotel room and stepped in the door, Scully remembered why Mulder's alacrity failed to astound her.

"What are you doing?" she asked, in a long-suffering tone of voice.

"I picked this up in the Portland airport," Mulder said. He was stretched out on his bed with a book held up to his face. The title, emblazoned in a dark brown against the terracotta dust jacket, screamed: THE ANCIENT LEGENDS OF OLYMPIC INDIANS. Below the title, the silhouette of a wolf throwing its head back to howl decorated the middle of the book.

Scully was not impressed. "I doubt you'll find any evidence in there."

"No, but I might just find a clue to what had Sam Uley and Billy Black so opposed to federal involvement in the Brooks death."

"Maybe, but I wouldn't count on it."

"Fortunately, one of us is an optimist in this partnership."

As Mulder continued to peruse the book, Scully flopped into the chair opposite the cheap desk to the side of the bed and swiveled around to face Mulder. "So, you think we should start with the Cullens--"

"Hold on," said Mulder, holding up one hand. "Before we crack down, I have something to say."

Perplexed, Scully raised her eyebrows. "Okay?"

"I told you so." Mulder looked up at her, smiling in his good-natured way.

Scully almost smiled back. "Excuse me? I thought I was the one to make the connection between these two murders."

"Possibly, but I was the one who thought these killings were conducted by a human in the first place, so..." Mulder tipped an imaginary hat. "I claim prescience on this one."

"All right. Now can we start our hypotheses?"

"Hypothesize away, Scully."

Smirking, Scully sat back in her desk chair, hearing its plastic springs squeal in protest. "If you think the Quileutes might have a lead with their theory about the Cullens, I suggest we interview several of the tribal leaders and question Sam Uley a little more thoroughly. While one of us does that, the other should check up on the Cullens' records, their school papers and such. We should find out what we can about each member of this family and see if they have any sort of history that would indicate such a homicidal streak."

"And what about Sam Uley himself?" asked Mulder. "Don't you think we should check up on him?"

"Yes, and we should review some reports on recent Quileute society and any crime linked to their tribe in recent years."

Sighing, Mulder set his book down and ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know, Scully. Neither of these groups seems plausible. It just wouldn't make any sense for the Quileutes to be involved in this mess. What do they have against the Cullens, anyway? There's some past, some _history_ here we're missing."

"Well, that's why, starting tomorrow, we're going to gather as much information about the Cullens as we can." Scully stood and stretched, picked up the ubiquitous stack of paperwork, then fished her room key out of her pocket. "And we're not going to rule out the Quileutes as possible suspects, either. It's possible they're framing the Cullens as part of a grudge."

"Or for other reasons we can't fathom," Mulder amended, his eyes lingering on the book of Indian legends lying innocently on the bed. He looked back up and saw Scully staring at him. "Go get some rest, Scully. I'll see you at dinner."

"What do you plan to do now?" asked Scully. She didn't trust Mulder to do the sensible thing when he felt he needed more meat on a case. "Shouldn't you rest, too?"

"I'm going to, but--" Mulder reached over and opened the Indian legends book, "first I'm going to do some more reading. Goodbye, Scully."

Scully had a feeling this wasn't the last time she would see that book, and the feeling gave her no comfort. "Goodbye, Mulder."


	8. Chapter 8 Concrete Hypotheses?

**Author's Note: For those of you who closely follow story lines, I'd like to say that there are at least two major plot hints in this chapter! Considering I'm just elaborating on a very basic plot, I hope that helps you all keep track of the craziness taking place here. **

**Many thanks to those of you that have reviewed. So far, the feedback has been positive!**

**Thank you! Enjoy!**

8. Concrete Hypotheses?

After an early dinner, Mulder and Scully had agreed to begin their digging at seven o'clock the next morning. That night, Scully's sleep was again punctuated by strange dreams that left her feeling out of sorts. Her last dream had involved a man chasing her into the dark forests outside Forks, where he then proceeded to try and kill her with a set of carving knives.

As she made her way into the hotel lobby, Scully did her best to drive out the memory of her dreams with a strong cup of coffee-six cups' worth of grounds in three cups of water. She sipped the brew and waited impatiently for Mulder. Where was he? He'd been the one to wake her up the day before, and now she was waiting for him. She just wished he could be consistent in everything besides his penchant for implausible theories. But, of course, Scully thought, Mulder was seldom wrong in his conclusions about X-file cases, which disturbed her more than his ability to detect supernatural elements.

"Boo," said a voice in her ear.

Scully nearly sloshed her makeshift espresso all over herself as she whirled around. "Oh my-Mulder!" she said, taking the hand that had automatically flown to her gun off her holster. "You scared the living daylights out of me!"

Mulder grinned, his own cup of coffee held far out from his body to avoid spills. "Good morning to you, too, Scully. Why so jumpy this morning?" He inspected her onyx drink. "It's probably that loaded cup of coffee. Are you trying to jump start your circulation system this morning?"

"You never know when you'll need extra energy," said Scully darkly. Her dreams had already started a minor adrenaline rush in her system, and now Mulder's surprise had escalated her keyed-up attitude.

Mulder took a minute to study her, his blue eyes serious. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," sighed Scully, stirring her coffee, "I just...had a bad night's sleep. Sleep deprivation never lends itself well to violent murder investigations." She refrained from telling Mulder about the time she nearly shot a trash can out of nerves when they had been investigating several murders in Texas.

Mulder laughed without much humor, then gestured to a table in the lobby. "Breakfast?"

"Sure." Taking another sip of coffee, Scully followed her partner to the table laden with the same breakfast the two of them had eaten the day before. As she took her seat, she carefully set her tote bag containing all the case documents on the empty chair beside her. She most certainly didn't want a repeat of yesterday's paper disaster, although meeting another version of Hermes would not necessarily be a bad thing...

"You probably don't need to bring all those papers with you, you know," Mulder remarked as he buttered a bagel. "In fact, it would be a better idea to keep them somewhere secure in your room. We don't want to lose any of them."

"Actually, we could need them for reference during our digging. But the reason I'm taking them with me is mostly because I have lost one of them." Scully frowned. "I organized them last night before I went to bed and realized I don't have the official autopsy report for the Brooks death, the one Dr. Snow referred to in his unofficial statement."

"Oh, really? Where did it go?" Mulder looked up from his breakfast when Scully didn't answer immediately. "Scully?"

"I don't know," said Scully, but her thoughts betrayed her words. _What if that doctor had taken the autopsy report by accident?_ He might have mistaken it for one of his own documents, or he might just have overlooked it and not added it to Scully's stack of papers. For whatever reason or whatever cause, Scully was without her official report, and it was troubling her. "I ran into this doctor in the hallway coming to meet with Dr. Snow," Scully explained to Mulder. "I think he might have taken the paper by accident."

Mulder's reaction to this sentence surprised Scully; he leaned forward swiftly, like he had just been hit by a thought. "That doctor might have been Carlisle Cullen, Scully."

For a moment Scully stared at Mulder in incredulity, wondering if he was implying something or if her mind was simply paranoid. "Are you saying you think the doctor took that report on purpose? To conceal evidence?"

"It's possible, isn't it?"

"Oh, Mulder, that's ridiculous," said Scully, half-laughing. "Concealing evidence is a crime, and if anyone wanted to hide something, stealing an FBI agent's autopsy report isn't exactly subtle. Besides, he would have had to look through all of those reports so quickly...that's just impossible."

"Then why is that the only report you're missing?" asked Mulder, his eyebrows raised.

"Because it most likely got blown the farthest and neither of us noticed its absence," said Scully. Really, Mulder was being absurd.

"What did the doctor look like?" asked Mulder, leaning back again and stuffing his bagel into his mouth.

"Why does that matter?" Scully tried to hedge her answer, unwilling to recount her momentary covetousness of another woman's husband.

Mulder shrugged. "Just curiosity, mainly. But if he was young, that narrows down our speculations about him."

"He was young-_very _young."

"Mm-hm," said Mulder.

"That doctor was most likely _not_ Carlisle Cullen," said Scully in exasperation. "What would be the odds of us running into each other? And how would he know I was an FBI agent investigating the murders he and his family supposedly committed?"

"He wouldn't," said Mulder, "but it wouldn't take him long to figure out you weren't hospital personnel, in a town this small."

Scully shook her head and started to eat the apple on her plate.

"Why are you so sure the Cullens are at all involved in this case?" Scully queried, her face turned to the window as they drove to the Forks police station. "The only basis we have for this idea is what Billy Black said to us on the first day. And didn't you just say last night that neither of our suspected groups matched the murders?"

"This is only the third day of the case," Mulder said, amused. "To answer your original question, Scully, I don't know why I think that family is part of the case. Aside from what the Quileutes told us, we don't have any proof that the Cullens are involved, and I do know I said they weren't plausible suspects. But..."

"But?"

"But what if they are?"

"What kind of scientific synopsis is that?" demanded Scully, half-joking.

"It isn't one, and don't you worry, I'll work a scientific theory around to fit my gut feelings."

Scully felt like rolling her eyes, like she had been wont to do in high school. "Oh, Mulder."

"I know it's entirely within reason to think that Billy Black and Sam Uley hold a grudge against the Cullens and merely want to get them in trouble," Mulder said. "But since that intention could easily backfire on them and have them end up being investigated themselves, I don't see why they would take that approach. Why not just claim the Cullens stole their cat?"

"Here's the station," Scully replied, fleeing the car before Mulder could trick her into forgiving him for his horrendous logic.

Chief Swan was waiting for them when they stepped in the front room. "Good morning, Doctor Scully, Agent Mulder," he said, nodding to each of them. "Did you have any luck finding Dr. Snow?"

"We did, and we got some reports from him." Scully rummaged in her tote and pulled out the documents, now nicely paper-clipped together to avoid further accidents. "Do you need them here for official records?"

"No, we'll just have the hospital fax them to us. Is there anything else I can do to help your investigation?" Chief Swan looked dubiously at them, as though he didn't exactly know what he should offer them.

"You could lend me a car," said Mulder. "I think I'll head down to the La Push reservation and ask around."

Pursing his lips, Chief Swan folded his arms. "If you think that's a good idea..."

"It's the only idea I've got," said Mulder dryly. "This killer has an uncanny knack for hiding evidence."

"I know." Chief Swan scowled. "My men combed that whole crime scene for six hours, and all we got was the purse and the blood."

"No fingerprints?" asked Scully, perplexed. Did this killer wear gloves while he cheerfully mutilated his victims? It didn't seem to fit.

"Who knows. Maybe he's just good at destroying whatever DNA samples we might be able to get." The police chief ran a hand tiredly through his hair. "I'll be honest with you two: if we can't figure this case out soon, I'll have to call in to Seattle and get someone else on this case. It's too big for this town's law enforcement to handle."

"That might not be a bad thing," said Mulder, "calling in another police force."

"I already called in the FBI," said Chief Swan irritably. "How much bigger can I get?"

"Don't worry, Chief Swan," said Scully smoothly, "we'll gather some more information on suspects today and have some concrete hypotheses fleshed out. I'll call you if we have a strong lead." She hoped the chief wouln't notice the use of opposites in her assurance. "Concrete" and "Hypothesis" were almost antonyms.

"Thank you. I'll get that car for you, too. It'll be waiting outside in a minute." As Mulder and Scully made to leave, the police chief put a hand on Scully's arm. "Oh, and-" he cleared his throat, "be careful, all right? I don't want anything to happen to you two, out there."

Scully blinked, startled and touched. "We'll be careful, Chief. Thank you."

"I know it's silly," Chief Swan said gruffly, "but you kind of remind me of...my daughter. So...just be careful."

Scully smiled. "I will."


	9. Chapter 9 Help?

**Author's Note: I'd just like to make a few brief notations-**

**1. The plot is going to pick up a little in later chapters, for you action junkies. ;) These beginning chapters are mostly setup and buildup, and since they're very short, it makes it seem like the story might be moving slowly. However, most of these chapters aren't more than a few pages, max. **

**2. There will be more interaction between Cullens and FBI agents soon. Patience is a virtue!**

**3. Lastly, I'll most likely update this story in chunks, meaning, several chapters at a time. I'm trying to organize this story well, so I'm doing my best to meld the plot successfully. I don't want to just slap it up here and hope for the best. Believe me, it doesn't work out very well...**

**Thank you again!**

9. Help?

As soon as Mulder had a car, Mulder and Scully prepared to separate and search out the two different leads they had discussed the night before: the Quileutes and the Cullens. Scully felt discouraged at the depths to which they had to sink in order to move on the case. In her opinion, neither the Cullens nor the Indians seemed to be adequate suspects. However, she could think of no other options for their search, and so she faced Mulder with a resigned air as they decided who would go where. "I have a feeling my car will hold out better against rougher terrain, so I think I'll drive to La Push."

"I think you'll have better luck here in town," said Mulder quickly, drumming his fingers absently on the top of his borrowed car.

"Why?" asked Scully, somewhat suspiciously.

"You seem more interested in the Cullens than I am."

"I'm not the one who implied they're committing these crimes," Scully argued.

"So you'll be a more objective party to investigate them than me," answered Mulder, his words accompanied by soft taps against the metal of the car.

Scully wondered what had Mulder so uneasy; he hardly ever disagreed with her this much in one day over something so trivial. "Mulder, if you'd rather investigate the Quileutes, just say so."

"It's not that, Scully, it really isn't. It's just strange." Mulder stopped his tapping and gave her his full attention. "I just have this bad feeling about you driving outside of town by yourself."

"I've driven alone to remote places before and you never had a problem with it."

"That's debatable," said Mulder, smiling fleetingly before turning serious again. "I can't explain why I have this feeling, but it's been nagging me since last night."

Scully suppressed a snort. "Indigestion?"

"Scully, I'm serious."

And he really was, Scully noted with mild alarm. "If it's going to bother you," she said, "I'll work on the Cullens here in Forks."

"Good." Mulder adjusted his jacket and climbed into the four-door Chief Swan had lent him. "Thanks for humoring me," he said, started up his car, and drove off.

"Any time," Scully said softly after him.

***_Subliminal Message Two-Ice_***

"Ma'am, I just want to see the records," Scully repeated for what seemed like the fourteenth million time, although in reality it was only the fifth. "I don't need to take them with me or copy them; I just want to look at them."

The middle-aged redhead behind the desk in Forks High School's front office cast Scully another doubtful look. "I just don't know if I'm supposed to hand these out to people who aren't school staff, Miss Scully. This is student information that isn't shared with the public."

Sighing, Scully pulled out her last resort. "I'm with the FBI, Ms. Cope," she said, showing her badge clearly in the flourescent lighting. "I am Agent Dana Scully, and I need those records as part of my investigation."

Scully winced internally at Ms. Cope's reaction to the badge. The woman's eyes got huge and her jaw dropped. "Oh, I didn't-" she fussed with the large piece of jewelry around her neck, flustered. "Well, I-I'll get those records in just a second, Agent Scully." The secretary could not hide the curiosity radiating from her in waves.

"Thank you," said Scully, a little crisply. Small town scretaries could be such a pain sometimes.

"So, Agent Scully..." Ms. Cope looked up furtively from her file folder. "Did Chief Swan call you in to investigate that college girl's murder?"

"I'm not really at liberty to speak about that, Ms. Cope," said Scully quickly, unwilling to explain all the particulars of the case.

"Oh, all right." Ms. Cope was effectively shut down and did not ask any more questions. She handed the records of the Cullens and several other students over to Scully with nothing more than a 'please leave those on my desk when you're finished with them.' Scully barely heard her as she skimmed through the records. She had only requested the other five students' papers to cover the fact that she was investigating the Cullens exclusively, a fact that would have been a red flag to any gossip's tender sensibilities.

The files on the Cullen children were sparse, to say the least. They had all been adopted at different times, starting with two seniors in high school, Rosalie and Jasper Hale, Esme Cullen's niece and nephew. Next came Edward Cullen, a junior, and Emmett Cullen and Alice Cullen, both seniors. The Hale twins had been adopted at the age of eight, whereas the Cullen siblings had been adopted when Edward was fourteen, Emmett, sixteen, and Alice, fifteen. The local social worker had said the five children were remarkably well-adjusted for adopted children and had formed very close bonds with one another. The Cullens had only been attending Forks High for a year and a half, however; their papers said they transfered to the school in the summer two years before and started attending in the fall.

Edward Cullen had top grades in everything, despite the fact that he had skipped a total of twenty-seven school days. Scully raised her eyebrows as she checked the other Cullens' papers. They had all skipped a fair amount of classes, Jasper Hale and Edward the most. Jasper had a spotless GPA just like Edward. The only Cullen without a 4.0 grade average was Emmett Cullen, who had a B in gym class and another B in economics.

What struck Scully as the most odd thing about the children's papers were their medical records. Without fail, every Cullen and Hale had a perfect medical history. They had their shots and their yearly physicals, their immunizations clearly dated and their shot records in order. Perhaps that wasn't so strange, Scully reasoned to herself. After all, their adopted father was a doctor, and he'd certainly want his children to be good examples of medical specimens. But not one of the Cullen children had any sort of allergy. Wasn't that a bit strange? Since the teenagers weren't even all related, wasn't it odd that none of them struggled with alleriges?

Scully took notes discreetly as she searched the records, keeping her pen low so it wouldn't attract Ms. Cope's attention. Although she had now revealed her true identity as an FBI agent, she doubted the easily-discombobulated secretary liked strangers jotting down tidbits about students. When she was finished with the records she took them back to the desk. "Thank you very much, Ms. Cope. You've been a great help."

"Oh, no trouble," Ms. Cope said, hastily recovering the papers. "Have a good day, Agent Scully." "You, too. Oh, and Ms. Cope-" Scully sighed. "I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't tell too many people about this. I don't want this case to attract any more attention than it already has."

"Don't worry, Agent Scully," Ms. Cope promised fervently, nodding her head, "I won't mention it to anyone. If anyone asks I'll just say you were in here to check up on the school records."

"Thank you again." Scully lifted one hand in a half-hearted wave and left the office. She got into her car, revved up the engine, which seemed to be having some trouble, and pulled out of the lot. Her next stop was the police station, and then the Cullen's house...

The young police officer at the front desk of the station was as helpful as Ms. Cope.

"I don't really know how to call in suspects for questioning, Agent Scully," he said, looking crestfallen at his inexperience. "We've never had to do that in Forks, really."

"I realize that," said Scully, doing her best to have patience with him. "If it's not possible to call them to the station, I can just go visit their house. But I would like to question them here, if you could schedule that."

Chewing at his lip in consternation, the officer dithered over the telephone resting on his desk, then seemed to change his mind. "I just don't know, Agent Scully."

Scully sighed. "That's okay. I'll just go to the house, all right?"

The officer nodded, immensely relieved. "Okay, that sounds good. Would you like someone to go with you?" He was still trying to be useful. "I get off this shift in an hour, if you want an escort."

"Thanks, but I'll be fine. I've done this kind of questioning many times."

"Okay, but..." he looked around to make sure there was no one else in the deserted room, then lowered his voice conspiratorially. "The Cullens have a bit of a reputation for being weird in this town. They don't really get out much, they hardly talk to anybody. They're pretty strange."

"Oh?" Scully was interested in what the officer had to say. The more she could learn about the Cullens, the better, even if her source was repeating old rumors. "How are they strange?"

"Nobody goes out to their house but them," said the police officer. "It's way out on the edge of town, city limits. People used to invite the doctor and his wife to parties out of courtesy, but no one does that anymore. They've never accepted an invitation."

"Maybe they just like their privacy," said Scully.

"There's nothing wrong with that, of course," the young officer agreed, "but to never accept an invitation? We think it's kind of rude. They keep to themselves, the Cullens. They probably won't appreciate you going out to their house, Agent Scully."

Scully smiled at him, trying not to look too devil-may-care. "I'll be fine. Thanks for your time."

The young officer sensed that he had sounded superstitious to Scully, because he called hastily to her, "I didn't mean to sound snobby, Agent Scully. Doctor Cullen's really a nice guy. His family's just a little...off."

"I'll keep that in mind, thanks," Scully called back, swinging the door to the station shut.

As she started her car, Scully wondered if maybe there was something to these rumors and superstitions about the Cullens. They couldn't all be inaccurate, could they? But maybe Forks simply wasn't used to a secluded family that didn't enjoy the company of everyone in town. Was it possible that the townspeople resented the thought that someone might not like their company?

The song playing on her radio brought Scully back to the road in front of her. It was a loud, artsy song with plenty of guitars and a warbling male voice duet. She switched the channel to a classical station, and the sound of Handel's Water Music filled the car. There, that was better. She didn't have time to flip through channels, so she would settle for the standard classics. Music Appreciation in her freshman year of college had payed off in the end.

Paying close attention to the directions the policeman had scribbled out for her, Scully headed out of the center of Forks and toward the edge of the town, the road growing less populated as she drove. The Cullens' house was far outside the main hub of Forks, like the officer had said. Trees flashed by her window as she twisted around the curves of the wet pavement, raindrops throwing themselves persistently against her windshield. Soon a steady fall of rain pelted her car. Scully internally frowned; she didn't want to get wet while investigating. She hadn't brought an extra shirt, and she would look like a drowned cat without a comb to smooth her hair down.

Although it was only midday, Scully hoped more than one of the Cullens would be home so she could question them. Her idea was to question two or three of them separately to see if their answers to the same inquiry coincided with the others'. She might even decide to question them individually, in which case, it would be better if only Doctor Cullen's wife, Esme, was home. The kids were probably at school, Scully reasoned, but with their track record she couldn't be positive. She would have to see what she got when she arrived at the house.

Above the bubbly notes of Water Music, a mechanical grinding noise dissolved into a loud pop. The car lurched under Scully, skidding on the wet road. Scully gripped the steering wheel and tapped her break. With another pop, the car gave a second kick, and a third. Something gurgled like a dying animal, the car slowed jerkily, and then the engine shuddered to a halt. Scully turned the wheel, wreslting with the vehicle to get it off the road. She had a feeling it wouldn't be going anywhere for a while, not with that spectacular death scene.

Whoever had given Chief Swan this rental car had cheated him out of good money.

Scully popped the hood, climbed out of the car, and examined the damage. She groaned in horror: she was no car expert, but she could tell when an engine was bad. She should have paid more attention when the car had problems starting at the school, and she might have been able to borrow one from the police station.

Growling in frustration at herself, Scully whipped out her cell phone and started dialling Mulder's number. It was going to embarass her to death, but she needed him to come pick her up so they could continue the investigation. She would need a new car, as well. Mulder was going to have a hey-day with this-

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something rustle in the verdant green forest to her left. Scully turned, curious, but she could see nothing moving in the spot that had caught her eye. It must have been a bird or a small animal. A breeze wound itself through the tall trees on the side of the road, carrying the scent of the rain still trickling onto her head, into her nostrils. High above her head, the trees bent to the wind and rain and swayed musically. The sound struck Scully as forlorn.

Abruptly, irrationally, Scully was nervous about being alone on the road. The breeze grew in strength, and again she thought she saw a movement, just out of the corner of her eye. Turning to the spot, she saw nothing but bark from a very large tree, almost four feet wide and at least thirty feet tall. This tree was closer to the road than the last spot she had seen movement. A prickle went up Scully's spine. There were mountain lions and bears in Washington, weren't there? Without conscious thought, Scully's hand strayed to the holster at her side.

She was distracted from her nerves by the tinny sound of a car engine coming toward her from the road. Unwilling to put her back to the forest, Scully listened harder to the noise to see how far away it was. The sound was closing in rapidly on her location, like the driver of the car had no idea that the speed limit through rural highways was fifty-five. The noise grew so loud that Scully took her eyes from the forest and searched for the approaching vehicle.

She didn't have to look very far, for there, zooming toward her at a speed worthy of the Indie 500, was a gorgeous red convertible. A BMW, Scully guessed, although she couldn't name most car labels with any level of expertise. She figured there was definitely a man behind that wheel, because she had never heard of a woman treating a highway like it was a Nascar track. The shiny red car purred like a panther as it raced down the road, and for a wild moment Scully thought it was headed straight at her with no inention of stopping. But her second of panic was unfounded.

Within half a minute of its appearance, the red convertible had roared to a halt in front of her, its wheels grinding against the pavement as it came to a complete stop. _Now, that was a Safe Emergency Stop if she had ever seen one_._ Whoever this man's Driver's Ed teacher had been would be proud._ Scully found it hard to believe that a car could make that kind of stop without burning the rubber off its tires. However, the BMW was intact. Both its glossy doors swung open at the same time to reveal the driver and-_her_ passenger.

"Dana," said the driver, hands on hips, "what are you trying to do, get yourself stranded and lost in the woods before we even get to meet each other?"

She was short and slight, with deathly pale features and inky black hair that stuck up in spikes. Her expression was a pert pout, full lips scrunched into a compact circle and straight black eyebrows frowning over her eyes.

Her large, darkly-lashed, amber eyes.

The eyes were what disturbed Scully most; she had seen those eyes before.

Dog-gone it, Mulder had been right.


	10. Chapter 10 Do I Know You?

10. Do I Know You?

"...and it's raining to boot," finished the girl, concluding a rant of which Scully heard only the first and last sentences. "Honestly, Dana, are you trying to make my hair frizz?"

"Uh," was Scully's brilliant response. She was shocked by this girl's apparent familiarity with her name. As far as she knew, she was known to the people of Forks as Agent Scully, or Dr. Scully, not Dana.

"Oh, well, I guess I'm forgetting the usual formalities, aren't I?" Sighing in a long-suffering way, the girl danced over to where Scully stood and held out one of her tiny hands. Scully took it, noticing vaguely the same iciness of the doctor in the hallway in its smooth feel. "You're Dana Scully, of course," said the girl, "and I'm Alice. Alice Cullen, but you've figured that out all by yourself."

"Well...nice to meet you," said Scully, unsure of how to answer, since Alice had already introduced her. "but it seems like you know me from somewhere else."

Alice's response to this was a blindingly white smile. "Naturally. But come on-" she raced off to the red covertible and opened its front door, "it's raining cats and dogs out here! Let's get inside and go back to town, so we can find a guy to tow your car. Jasper-" she looked over the top of car, "you won't mind being demoted to the backseat, will you?"

Scully's eyes jumped to the passenger of the red convertible. She received something of an electric spasm as she realized this man was nearly as handsome as the doctor had been. Alice had called him Jasper, but surely she wasn't supposed to believe this fully mature man was in high school? With one hand resting on the top of the car and one on its door, Jasper looked akin to a model for those posh fashion magazines filled with predatory women and ultra-refined men_,_ his blonde hair made damp by the rain and his thin face as angular as a statue's. He, too, had strange amber eyes; but his were haunted, Scully thought, and much too old for a senior in high school.

"Oh, silly me," said Alice, turning back to Scully, "Dana, this is Jasper Hale, my boyfriend and the absolute most wonderful boy in existence! Jasper, this is Dana Scully, like I told you! Isn't she beautiful?" In spite of herself, Scully found it rather flattering to be referred to as 'beautiful' by such an inhumanly lovely girl. "I think she'd make the most stunning actress," continued Alice, as she ducked itno the car and started the engine. "But maybe she prefers the quiet life, like us."

"It's nice to meet you, Jasper," Scully finally said, hoping to get more out of Jasper than a deep stare. If she could get the two of them talking, she might find out more about the Cullen case without either of them knowing.

"Thank you, ma'am," said Jasper, shaken a little out of the stare he'd been divvying up between Scully and Alice. "It's nice to meet you, as well." With some chagrin, Scully realized she'd been staring at Jasper while he had been staring at her. They had been locked in some kind of unconscious fascination with each other, one that left Scully with the impression that they had gotten to know each other better without saying anything.

Alice made an impatient noise in the back of her throat and gestured to the convertible. "The car's running, people! Let's go!"

"Actually, Alice, I think I'll stay with Miss Scully's car," said Jasper, his body rigid and his face suddenly panicked.

"If it's going to be any trouble for you," Scully began, but Alice cut her off.

"No, Jasper, I can't let you stay out here in the rain!" said Alice, looking appalled by the very thought.

"I'll be fine."

"Come on, there's more than enough room for all of us."

"Alice, someone's got to stay with the car to make it sure it can't be fixed," said Jasper, his eyes gaining a bit of desperation in them. He seemed to be communicating something to Alice without words, but what it was proved impossible to tell.

Scully stood mutely by, wondering what on earth she was missing.

"The car will be fine," Alice insisted, and she ran around the car and took Jasper by the hand, pulling him toward the seats. "Just have a little faith, Jasper."

"Really," Scully said, "if it's going to be any trouble for you, I can just call my-"

"It's no trouble!" sang Alice. "Now into the car with both of you and no more complaining! You'd think I was herding around a couple of mules!"

With identical looks of discomfort, Scully and Jasper did as they were told, Scully running back to her car, pulling out her tote bag, and moving hurriedly to the convertible. Scully obeyed Alice because she was somewhat harassed by the girl's hyper-active hospitality and because she really had few options, but Jasper seemed to obey Alice out of pure instinct. He folded himself into the back seat of the convertible with no further protest, and Alice rewarded him with another shining smile before climbing into the driver's seat.

All the way to Forks, Alice kept up a stream of conversation, drawing Scully into her topic of interest easily. The girl was definitely a talker, a striking contrast to her entirely silent boyfriend. Their relationship intrigued Scully, even from the little she had seen of it. From what she could tell, Jasper and Alice were opposites: one was withdrawn, one was blatantly extroverted; one appeared inclined to brood, one displayed enough enthusiasm for three people. Scully found it sweet that they were a couple, although the fact that they lived in the same house as foster children was odd.

Then Scully's analytical mind took over, and she remembered she was riding with potential accessories to murder, or actual murderers. That goaded her into speaking to Alice, disrupting the girl's monologue on the latest shoe fashions. "I haven't thanked you yet for picking me up, Alice."

"Oh, it was no problem," said Alice cheerfully.

Scully wasn't finished yet. "It was very fortunate that you came along when you did, but I have to ask...Were you skipping school?"

"Yes," answered Alice. Scully heard a faint noise from Jasper that sounded like an annoyed sigh. "It's healthy to ditch now and then." She winked at Scully from the corner of her eye. "You'd better be glad we did, too, or you would still be stuck out on the higway."

"Well, as a matter of fact, I was going to call my partner just when you showed up, so I wouldn't have been stranded long." Casually mentioning her partner was a good way to work into the subject of the case.

"Partner? Like, a business partner?"

"Kind of like a business partner. We're from the FBI."

There was the tiniest pause as Alice disgested that information. "Oh?"

"Yes," Scully replied, "we're here to investigate the murder of Allison Pratchett, the college girl who was killed here about five days ago."

In the bare, two-second lull in the conversation, Scully knew Alice and Jasper were connecting some dots in their heads, but she didn't break the silence. Putting your suspects on edge could turn out productive results. At last, Alice picked up where she had left off. "Who's your partner?"

"His name is Fox Mulder."

"Is he tall, dark, and handsome? Is he like James Bond? Does he wear Armani suits?" Alice, Scully knew, was speeding through questions in order to cover up her moment of disconcertion. She wondered what so unnerved the two adopted Cullens, aside from the presence of an FBI agent in their car.

"He's pretty handsome," said Scully, smiling at the idea of Mulder running around in a designer suit, suave as James Bond. "As for the Armani suit, he's lucky if he buys a new pair of slacks from JC Penney's every few months."

Shuddering delicately, Alice let out a small groan. "So I guess they don't pay you much at the FBI. Or does he just have abominable fashion sense?"

"He does what he can, for a man. My advice to him is to buy navy or black, so everything will match."

"Sound advice, except putting navy and black _together_-"

Alice shuddered again, causing Scully to laugh. "You're right, Alice, our salaries could use some bolstering once in a while. But, of course, we didn't join the FBI for the profits."

"Oh, no. The kind of government workers who get the job done." Although Alice's voice was teasing, Scully sensed an underlying current in her words.

"That's right," Scully said, keeping her own voice light. "Mulder and I have our causes, and investigating murders happens to be one of them."

"That's good," said Alice, her eyes on the road. "Murders have to be investigated sometime, right?"

"Right."

"Only, Dana, I can't help but ask..." The girl's full mouth turned down, her petite face shadowed. "Do you ever get the feeling that, sometimes, there's people who don't want you to get your job done?"

"Alice," said Jasper, sharply.

"All the time," Scully told her, memories of all of her and Mulder's 'unsolved' cases on her mind. If it weren't for the powers that be, so many lives might have been saved.

"Well..." Alice chewed her lip pensively. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I think this is one of those times."

Like a frost descending on an unsuspecting morning, a chill fell over Scully, and she looked over at Alice, who still watched the road. "What do you mean?" she asked, slowly.

Alice shook her head. "Don't ask me that, okay?"

"Why not? Is there something you need to tell me?"

"No."

"Are you sure, Alice? If there's anything you can tell me that will help the case-"

"Yes, I'm sure. I _can't_ tell you."

Scully opened her mouth, ready to mercilessly pound the both of them until they explained their cryptic behavior, but the buzz of her cell phone at her hip interrupted her. She hit 'answer'. "Hello?"

"Scully?"

"Yes, Mulder, what is it?"

"Where are you?"

"I'm on my way back to the police station. What's the matter?"

"Nothing," said Mulder, but his voice was too even for Scully's comfort. "I just need to talk to you."

"Okay, I'll be there soon."

"Good. Scully, you haven't talked to the Cullens yet, have you?" Mulder's distorted voice projected too loudly in the small car. Scully knew Alice and Jasper caught that last question. Ostentatiously, Alice kept her eyes facing forward without any sign that she'd heard.

"I'll let you know when I get there, Mulder," said Scully, wincing a little.

"Right."

"I presume you've found something out about this case?"

"I have," said Mulder. "But you're just not going to believe it."


	11. Chapter 11 Believe What?

**Author's note: Hazzah! Another update! Remember how I said these would come spaced out but in little chunks? Well, I was right in my reckoning. I hope you are still interested, because it's starting to get good!**

**If you're a music fanatic like I am, I have a small song suggestion for this story. Not necessarily this chapter, though. The song that always comes to my mind when I think of Scully is "CrushCrushCrush" by Paramore. Don't ask me why-I don't know. It seems to suit her. Here's the url: .com/watch?v=ei8hPkyJ0bU Paramore is such a versatile band, it can go with any fandom you choose!**

**Enjoy!**

11. Believe What?

"I take it your partner has heard and believed the gossip about us going around town," Alice said, as she drove through Forks.

"Gossip?" Scully chose to play stupid.

"About how we live all alone in the woods and have incestuous relationships with each other?" Scully wasn't surprised to hear a hint of bitterness in the girl's voice.

"I don't think anyone calls you incestuous," said Scully indifferently, "but he probably has heard some unfavorable reports about your family. He drove down to the La Push Indian reservation today to investigate the second murder in Forks."

Just as she thought it would, the name 'La Push' struck a nerve in her companions. From the backseat Scully heard Jasper mutter something violently under his breath that sounded uncannily like profanity. Alice was a different matter: instead of reacting with cussing, she froze, her hands clenched around the steering wheel. "La Push? Why did he want to investigate at La Push?"

"Well, the second murder was committed on the edge of the reservation, but still technically on Forks property. Chief Swan still had to investigate it. We thought we would question some of the residents of La Push for any information about the murder."

"That was a good idea for the case, Dana," said Alice, "but not such a good idea if you wanted to find out about us. The La Push people hate Carlisle."

"But, why is that?" asked Scully. She did her best to hide her excitement; she had thought the Cullens would avoid this topic rather than introduce it themselves.

"I'm not really sure..." Alice looked thoughtfully out over the town, her speed now matching that of the other, less flashy cars around her. "I've never really asked Carlisle about it, but whatever the rumors are, they're false. Carlisle has never done anything to anyone at La Push."

"But then why would they take such a strong disliking to him, if he's never done anything to make them suspicious?" Scully knew Alice was most likely lying. But if she was, she was a superior actress.

"Like I said, I've never asked him about it, but I do know that the Indians on La Push cling to their old ways pretty hard. Maybe they're just repulsed by Carlisle's pure caucasian looks."

Racism? That was a possibility, Scully knew, but it didn't line up with the fact that Billy Black was obviously good friends with Chief Swan. "And you say your family has only been here for two years?"

"I never said that," said Alice, turning sharply to look at Scully.

_Crap_. "Well, that's what I heard from an officer at the police station," Scully lied smoothly, hoping her miniscule grimace didn't give her away. What a seriously amateur mistake to make, betraying the fact that she had investigated the Cullens' backgrounds!

"We moved down here from Alaska two years ago, yes," Alice confirmed. "Esme loves small towns, so we moved from one hole in the wall to another. Personally, I like Washington a lot more than Alaska, although both of them are gorgeous."

"And the people at La Push have disliked your adopted father from day one?" asked Scully, puzzled.

"Almost from day one. They refuse to go to the Forks hospital, now, because of Carlisle. They just stubbornly choose to hate us, and since they've treated us that way for two years, I can't say the feeling isn't somewhat mutual." Alice bit her lip after her last statement, and Scully knew she realized she might have said too much. The girl spoke up to diffuse the tension in the car. "Where are we taking you, again?"

"The police station, please," answered Scully.

"We're nearly there. And your partner's waiting for you, with a car?"

"I hope so."

They were silent until Alice pulled the BMW up to the curb in front of the police station. Scully slung the strap of her bag over one shoulder and opened the car door, stepping out onto the road. "Thank you again for the ride," she said, but the thanks fell a little weak after their previous conversation.

"Of course," Alice replied, and flashed a small smile at Scully. "Don't worry, Dana. I'm positive this will all work out for the good, in the end."

Nonplussed, Scully shut the door and watched the bright red car pull away, its tires squeaking on the wet pavement. From within the convertible she could see Jasper move from the backseat to the front, and by the way his head was turned she assumed he was talking to Alice about their encounter with the FBI. Despite their civil treatment of her, Scully hoped her brief questions had stirred some uncertainty in her suspects.

Scully had just moved to face the entrance to the station when Mulder burst out of its two front doors, nearly missing the first three steps of the cement stairs in his haste to meet her. "Scully!" he said, his voice one decibel below a shout, "I thought-you said-that's one of _their_ cars-"

"_My_ car broke down just outside Forks, as I was going to the Cullens' house," said Scully, holding out a hand to stop his panic. "Alice Cullen and Jasper Hale were-well-I don't exactly know why they were skipping school, but I guess they were on their way to their house when they saw me on the side of the road. They offered me a ride, and I figured I might be able to derive some answers from them on the way back, so I accepted."

"But, then, when I called you..." said Mulder, his face white. "They heard me, didn't they?"

"Yes, of course. What's going on, Mulder?" As Scully took in the rest of his appearance, she felt her mouth fall open. "And why are you completely soaked?"

"I fell off a cliff," Mulder said, waving one hand impatiently, "but, Scully, I have to tell you what I learned down at La Push."

Scully's heart palpitated. "You fell off a _what_?"

"I'll tell you everything, but we've got to go somewhere private. Let's go to my car."

Scully nodded and followed after him, her eagerness to know the details of Mulder's morning subduing her dread at the new theory he had undoubtedly cooked up.

"So I thought I would have to do some serious arm-twisting to get any information out of the Quileutes," Mulder said, shrugging out of his sopping jacket and wringing it out over the side of the car, "but it turns out that I got lucky." Scully twitched, her hands itching to take the paper towels from between the front seats and try to dry up the water covering the rest of her partner. Since she knew it would be a lost cause, she stilled herself and concentrated on Mulder's monologue. "Right on the outskirts of La Push, not too far from where Mrs. Brooks was found, I came across a teenage boy of about thirteen or fourteen meandering along the road. I asked him if he wanted a ride, and he said yes and got in the car. Well-"

"Wait," Scully inerjected indignantly, "do you mean to tell me that after you nearly had an aneurysm when you saw me with the Cullen kids, you picked up some teenager off the side of the road?"

"That is an entirely different circumstance," said Mulder, "and you know it."

"What if this Quileute boy was just part of the setup, Mulder? Maybe he was there as a lookout, to make sure we didn't come back to the reservation?"

"Now who's letting their imagination get away with them?" laughed Mulder. "Are you going to listen to my enthralling tale of fantasy and intrigue, or not?"

Scully did her best not to pout, even though she knew it would tie Mulder up in knots. "Fine, go ahead."

"Thank you," sniffed Mulder theatrically, his mischief poorly concealed by his haughty expression. "As I was saying, this Quileute boy introduced himself as Seth Clearwater, and it so happens that he's the son of an elder in the Quileute's tribal council. I used a few inconsequential lines to get him talking while I drove him to his friend's house. He was a really easygoing kid, and pretty laid back about his whole tribal heritage. He was willing to tell me quite a lot about the old Quileute superstitions-since he doesn't believe them, obviously."

"Kids these days," Scully said.

"I could tell he got a certain thrill out of telling an outsider about the legends his people hold very close to their hearts," Mulder said. Scully heard a trifle of guilt in her partner's voice. "Naturally, I wanted him to spill the beans, so I just prompted him when it was necessary. The Quileute legends...they're definitely something else, Scully."

"I imagine so."

"Seth told me about the spirit warriors, the tribe's ancestors who could supposedly turn into gigantic wolves at will. Those were his favorite stories, because he talked about them the most. He doesn't know it yet, but he's actually very much into his heritage." Mulder smiled. "But one thing kept reappearing in his stories, some people he called 'the tribe's enemies.' I asked him what he meant by that, and he said he really shouldn't tell me. I didn't push him, but I let him know how interested I was. And I was interested; that kid can tell a story."

Scully couldn't resist. "Mulder, I can't believe you coerced a fourteen year-old boy into betraying his tribe."

"Here's where it gets uncanny," Mulder continued, as though he hadn't heard Scully-which wasn't so far off the mark, Scully knew. "Seth finally caved and told me what the 'enemies' were that he referred to. He said, 'You may not believe this, Mr. Mulder, but those ancient enemies of ours are still around, so the elders say.' I knew he wanted me to ask him what he was talking about, so I did.

'Well,' Seth said, 'Back about eighty years or so ago, some of our age-old enemies, the ones our ancestors fought, returned to hunt on our lands. But these enemies were different, so the legend goes. When Ephraim Black, the spirit leader at the time, went to challenge them to a fight, the leader of the coven stepped forward and offered a truce. The leader said that his coven wasn't like the others of his kind, and that they would not hunt on our lands. After a while of peace between our tribe and theirs, the coven moved on to another hunting ground.' Then Seth looked at me and said, 'The thing is, Mr. Mulder, the council thinks the coven's moved back here, after all this time.'"

"Mulder," Scully interrupted again, her dread plain in her voice, "please don't tell me-"

"Listen, Scully, listen! I had to ask Seth why and how his council could think that the same enemies could come back after eighty years. After all, weren't they just humans too, but from a rival tribe? Seth laughed at me and said, 'Oh, our enemies have never been human, Mr. Mulder, or so my dad says. We're supposed to protect humans _from_ our enemies. No, according to legend, our enemies have always been the Cold Ones.'"

"Mulder, you don't honestly think-"

"And what do you think the Cold Ones are, Scully?" asked Mulder, all trace of a smile gone from his face. "More importantly, _who_ do you think the Quileutes are certain the Cold ones are?"

"I don't want to know," Scully said, glaring to hide her sudden unease.

"You do, trust me. It's juicy," Mulder said, still unsmiling. "The Quileutes refer to vampires as the Cold Ones. And they think-"

"Mulder, this is so far beyond ridic-"

"They're positive the Cullens are vampires. And they think Carlisle Cullen is the same leader from over eighty years ago. Only now...they think he's broken the treaty." Mulder looked at Scully, his eyes unreadable in the overcast lighting of the rainy sky. "The crazy thing is, Scully, I'm not so sure they aren't right."


	12. Chapter 12 Vampires?

**Author's Note: Oh, the suspense! Now Mulder knows. He's not going to let this go, as Scully can guess. :) **

**Another song that I recommend for the X-files is, not surprisingly, the X-Files theme song! However, I have found a certain version of the song that pleases me much. Here's the url: .com/watch?v=LHmI9LMFO0Q It's the Terrestrial Mix.**

**Thank you! Enjoy!**

12. Vampires?

There was silence in the car for an entire minute.

"Say something, Scully," said Mulder. "I know you want to. Just say it."

Taking a deep breath, Scully tried to keep her head clear, purposefully smoothing her pants leg to take her mind off her rampant scornfulness. She clenched her teeth together and closed her eyes. In a last attempt at calm, she even thought of the times that Mulder had been right with his paranoid, over-the-top persecution mania. That really did nothing to help her attitude, and she finally gave in.

_"Vampires?" _The word came out from around her teeth, distorted. "They think the Cullens are _vampires_?"

"Look," Mulder began, "it's not as crazy as-"

"Yes, Mulder, I think it _is_ as crazy as it sounds," Scully said, and she was glad that she succeeded at keeping her voice even. "Do you realize what the Quileutes are suggesting? They're saying that a doctor at a perfectly normal, every-day hospital is a creature that sucks the blood of humans, and that his adopted family of five also thirsts after blood. Does that sound rational to you?"

"I know more than I told you," Mulder said. Scully wanted to say, _Do you think that's going to convince me?_ But she didn't. "Not to mention, Scully, whether or not we believe their theories about the Cullens, we have to admit that the Quileutes know more about them than we do. The tribe elders have been keeping a close eye on their enemies since they moved back to Forks, and therefore have collected more observations on them than we have."

"But if they have observed them through the lense of a mythological stigma like the one you told me, then that would change the way they view the Cullens completely. They wouldn't be looking for normal behavior, they'd only notice if the family did something out of the ordinary. The Quileutes aren't reliable sources, Mulder." Scully shook her head. Why did she even have to defend her logical refutation of insanity? "Besides, you heard all this from a freshman in high school. How do we know he was telling the truth?"

"Well, we can always find out if he was," Mulder said. "But I'm not aware of any fourteen year-old who could make up all the things he told me without some pre-planning, and what would be the point of that?"

"I don't know." Scully folded her arms over her chest and stared out the windshield, trying to gather her thoughts. She was disappointed in Mulder, she knew, because he had believed another far-fetched myth so easily. When was he going to learn that not every tabloid-worthy story was true? "But just think for a minute, Mulder. Let's assume that we accept this theory that the Cullens are...vampires." She grimaced. "The Cullens are vampires, and they've been killing stray humans in Forks for the past five days. Why now, after two years of discretion? And why in Forks? Don't you think they would be smart enough not to prey on people in their own town?"

"Good questions," said Mulder, "but they all have answers. Seth told me that his elders think the Cullens have had several...slips these past five days. That one of them has been unable to resist blood lately. They don't know which one. The tribe hasn't done anything about it because of the involvement of the police, but-"

"What do you mean, 'hasn't done anything about it?'"

Mulder shrugged. "If the treaty made between the leader of the Cullens and the tribe has been broken, the Quileutes think it's their duty to eradicate the coven."

Scully sought for words. "...They do know that's illegal, right? Mass murder?"

"I don't think they care, Scully. Besides, the Quileutes apparently don't view the Cullens as humans, so they wouldn't think human laws applied to them."

Her stomach twisting, Scully hoped her ears were deceiving her. "Have you thought that maybe the Quileutes are the ones we should investigate the most? After all, they are the ones off-handedly suggesting the murders of high school students and their parents." How deep did this Quileute prejudice run? And how could so much hate be accumulated over two years?

"I had the same reaction when Seth was talking to me," Mulder assured her, shifting so that he could face Scully. "Maybe if I explained more of the legends about the Cold Ones, you would understand where the Quileutes are coming from."

"I doubt it," said Scully.

Mulder smiled. "Try." Sitting back, Scully nodded at her partner, and he continued. "The Cold Ones, so the Quileutes say, are creatures with unmistakably hard, cold, white skin that throws light in the sun. And they are so blindingly beautiful that humans may think they're gods."

Scully felt a twinge of embarassment-she had immediately thought of that doctor in the hallway, whom she now suspected was Carlisle Cullen, as Hermes. _That _certainly didn't put her mind at ease. "On top of their physical attraction," Mulder went on, "the Cold Ones have superior strength and speed; no mere human can compare with them. They can, supposedly, tear tree trunks out of the ground with their bare hands. But the most distinctive feature of the Cold Ones is their thirst for blood. Seth liked to linger on that part of the story," he said, amused, "but I'll spare you the details."

"And that's it?" asked Scully sarcastically. "No wooden stakes, no fear of sunlight, no crucifixes? Do they expect us to believe that vampires are immune to those things?"

"Maybe they are," Mulder said, almost solemn. "The Cullens certainly do fit the description for pale skin and beautiful features."

"Mulder, please tell me you haven't started to correlate these attributes to our murder suspects."

"I haven't ruled out the legends, no."

Scully fought the urge to bang her head on the dashboard. "It's so ludicrous, though! We have absolutely no proof that the Cullens are at all involved with these murders!"

"There's one way to find out, isn't there?" Mulder said, grim determination in his eyes. He pulled his key out of his pocket and fit it into the ignition. The borrowed car kicked to life. "I think we should give questioning the Cullens another shot, with a car that actually works."

"Wait, Mulder, wait," Scully commanded, putting a hand on the steering wheel. "We can't do any questioning until you change in to some dry clothes."

"Oh." Mulder looked down at his soaked suit. "Yeah, I probably should."

"How did that happen to you?" asked Scully. "If it has to do with Quileute legends dictating that every fifth white person on the reservation has to throw himself off a cliff, I'm getting on the next plane to D.C."

"I just fell," sighed Mulder in a long-suffering way. "I thought I saw something over the side of this cliff, I stopped the car and looked out, and lost my balance. End of story."

"How high was the cliff?"

"Oh," Scully saw Mulder's ask-no-questions look come over his face, "twenty feet or so."

"Twenty feet? Or was it more like thirty?"

"Well, more like thirty-five or forty," Mulder said ruefully.

"Mulder," groaned Scully, "you could have been killed!"

"I know, believe me. It was pretty terrifying."

"We should go to the hopsital and make sure you're all right," said Scully, already looking him over carefully. She couldn't see anything wrong with him, but she wanted to make sure. "I should be driving. Do you feel cold, clammy? Do you feel dizzy? Does your head hurt?"

"I'm fit as a fiddle, Scully."

"You feel fit as a fiddle, but you might be hurt."

Mulder shook his head. "The case is more important. We've got to head up this new information, we don't have time to-"

_She knew he didn't just say that!_ "If you don't let me drive _and_ you refuse to be examined, I'll pronounce you unwell and recommend forty-eight hours of bed rest," Scully threatened him. "And _I'll_ follow up this new lead."

Mulder's mouth twisted. "You wouldn't."

"You know I will, Mulder."

"There's nothing wrong with me!"

"Because you haven't been examined, for all I know, you're in shock and have a concussion."

"Okay, okay." The car braked and Mulder put it into park, exiting the driver's seat. Scully slid over and occupied the space while he got into the passenger seat, scowling. "You're incorrigible, Scully."

"I care about your health, whether you do or not," Scully answered, calmer now that she had her way.

"Thanks, but that was over the top."

"Falling from a forty-foot height is nothing to fool around with, Mulder. You know, a human can die from falling off a twelve-foot roof, and fatality is almost positive at-"

"Yes, all right, I don't want to know. Having a doctor as a partner can be a blessing and a curse," he muttered.

Scully just smiled. "You know you like me."

There was a pause as Mulder did his best to brood, but he finally gave in. "Yes, I do."

The trip to the Forks hospital was made in companionable silence for the most part, with Mulder inserting several well-placed remarks about Scully's driving every so often. To these accusations, Scully did not deign to reply, but she did let Mulder know she didn't appreciate it. Secretly, she was glad he could make fun of her; that probably meant he suffered no injury from his spill off of a cliff.

"So what did Seth think about your ineptitude of balance, Mulder?" Scully asked, as they walked through the hospital parking lot. "Or had you already dropped him off when you had your accident?"

"I was coming back from talking to him when I stopped," said Mulder. "I thought I saw a kid on the rocks at the top of the highest cliff. He looked like he was going to jump, and this edge he was on must have been sixty or seventy feet. I was afraid he was making some kind of suicide attempt, so I pulled over and tried to get his attention. That was when I fell in," he said in a low voice, embarassed.

Scully frowned. "But he wasn't, was he? Making a suicide jump?"

"I don't think so, because he wasn't there when I finally got out of the water. It's a good thing I had swimming lessons when I was a toddler."

Laughing, Scully stepped aside as Mulder opened the door for her. They entered the hospital together and told the woman at the desk their reason for coming. She directed them to the ER waiting room, which was a short walk from the lobby. They took seats in a corner of the smaller room, away from a woman and her son, whose ear was bleeding steadily onto a wadded roll of tissues. "This is really, really unnecessary," Mulder told Scully. "We shouldn't be crowding up the waiting room. There are people who need the help, and I'm not one of them."

"Mulder, if there's nothing wrong with you, an examination will take five minutes at the most," Scully said, trying to reassure him.

"Then why don't you examine me? Why do we have to sit in the hospital?"

"Well..." Scully hid her smile. "I was thinking...if you wanted to, while you're being examined, I might have a look at those bodies again, and collect some certain data. Then, purely by accident, I might run into a certain doctor and collect the same data off of him. But this can only be accomplished if I have nothing better to do than go over some case work as I'm waiting for you." She was devious, sometimes, Scully thought. Disturbingly manipulative.

It took Mulder longer than she reckoned to decipher her plan. Then it was as though something clicked in his brain, and he blinked. "Oh. I hadn't thought of that. Right, a doctor we both would like to see for reasons other than medical concerns..."

Scully partially winced at his choice of words. "Exactly, Mulder."

"You're just diabolical, Scully. Taking advantage of the emergency room doctors, sending in your partner as a victim." Mulder clucked his tongue like an old woman. "How in the world did you ever convince the higher powers at the bureau that _you_ were the normal one?"


	13. Chapter 13 Innocuous?

**Author's note: Hurrah! Another chapter! Lucky number thirteen! Or not so lucky, for some of those involved...**

**I would like to make a simple note: I am not a doctor (as of yet), and therefore have almost no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to certain medical conditions. However, I do believe that some forms of seizure are caused by trauma or stress, and this is what I'm banking on in this chapter. Again, I make no claims to be a medical expert, although the doctors are almost always my favorite characters...**

**Enjoy!**

13. Innocuous?

"You fell off a cliff, huh?" The nurse said, lifting her eyebrows.

"That's right," said Mulder. "It was about a forty-foot drop, so I thought I should come in and have someone take a look at me, just in case."

"Well, I'll get you checked in, and someone will stop by in a few minutes..."

Scully didn't bother to listen to the rest of that boring dialogue; she had a mission to fuflfill.

Her plan was to secure some DNA from the victims' bodies that did not belong to the victims and analyze it. Although Chief Swan had said his people combed the bodies for evidence, Scully thought if she sent the samples to a government lab in Seattle they could root up some more results. It was a long shot, admittedly, but long shots were all she had for now. There was no concrete evidence in this case.

What she hadn't told Mulder was that she didn't plan to gather any DNA from Dr. Cullen. In reality, she remained steadfast in her denial of the Quileute legends. Vampires? That kind of myth held no grounds in science, and therefore she really had no doubts about its accuracy.

But...maybe a little DNA wouldn't hurt. Carlisle Cullen would never know her intentions if she _accidentally_ ran into him again. He wasn't a mind reader as well as a vampire, she was sure.

Shamelessly gleeful in her plot, Scully walked boldly down the hallway, ignoring nurses and orderlies in her path. If she acted in control of the situation, no one would stop her and ask her who she was and where in the world she was going. She cleared two corridors and one floor without any hitches, descending to the floor of the hospital where Dr. Snow had placed the bodies. But Scully wasn't so confident that she didn't keep her badge gripped tightly in one of her hands. When in doubt, badge it out, as Director Skinner had once said. Scully hadn't thought of that as one of his more brilliant maxims, but it applied to many cases in the field.

After five minutes of traipsing tiled corridors with closed metal doors, Scully found the rooms she wanted. She pushed open the doors, studiously averting her eyes from the sign that screamed AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY; CLEARANCE FOR DR. MATTHEW SNOW OR FORKS POLICE DEPARTMENT in large letters. These Forks policemen knew how to intimidate someone, that was obvious. No meek ancillary would dare to trespass into a room with such a sign as that. Fortunately, Scully thought smugly, she was no ancillary, and she had identification to back her up.

The work would be short, efficient, and inoffensive. She would collect some quick samples from Brooks, the freshest body, tuck them away in a Ziploc baggie, scrape some DNA off Dr. Cullen, then head back to the waiting room and meet with Mulder. Since she had been confronted with much grimmer tasks, Scully found herself relieved at the ease of the whole operation.

Once inside the makeshift autopsy lab, she wasted no time with formalities. Locating the correct body bag, Scully held her breath and pulled back the zipper, her face twisting in spite of herself at the sight of the body. Ms. Brooks had been severely mauled on her first examination of the corpse, but now two days of decay had begun to set in. Scully slapped some disposable gloves on and, flinching, ran her fingers over the teeth marks on Ms. Brooks' leg and arm. If there was any DNA to be had, it was most likely on the spots where the murderer had put his mouth on the victim. Scully took out the pen in her bag and marked one glove as "Left Leg, Brooks" and the other as "Left Arm, Brooks." She put each glove in a different baggie and labeled them, too.

Now for stage two, Scully thought, and took out the second pen in her bag. Taking a breath, she gently inserted the pen's tip into the most pronounced, individual tooth mark on Ms. Brooks's arm and moved it in a tight circle, covering the whole area. She dropped the pen in the right baggie and stuffed it all into her tote. Zipping the body back into _its _bag, Scully walked back to the doors, her heels clicking on the smooth floor.

She had accomplished the most important part of her mission in less than fifteen minutes, and Mulder was either impatiently awaiting her return or in the emergency room with a critical, trauma-induced injury. Scully was betting on option number one, but option number two made her step skip a little faster than usual. Still, she had the last addition to her plan to complete before she could leave the hospital. Mulder would have to wait.

Scully emerged into the heavily-trafficked section of the hospital without a second glance in her direction from any personnel. Sighing in relief, she prepared to scout out Dr. Cullen's office, but was distracted by a voice from a nearby doorway. "Scully!" The voice hissed. "In here!"

"Mulder, you don't have to whisper," said Scully, entering the small examination room. "It's not a crime to send your partner to scout around the hospital."

"You weren't just scouting," Mulder said, "and besides, it makes me feel more like James Bond to implement all the cloak-and-dagger."

Scully's mind flashed back to Alice's questions about her partner. _Is he tall, dark, and handsome? Does he wear Armani suits? Is he like James Bond? _She giggled, earning a strange look from Mulder. "I got the samples," she said. "All from the bite marks on Ms. Brooks."

"Great," Mulder said with false enthusiasm. Scully smiled-Mulder hated anything to do with autopsies. "What about the other samples you planned to gather?"

"I'm waiting for those," answered Scully. "Awaiting the opportune moment."

"It's not a marriage proposal," snorted Mulder.

"It's not a hit-and-run job, either," Scully retorted. Sometimes, Mulder had no finesse in matters of subtle investigation. His methods typically involved shooting, slapping, screaming, or jumping.

"Well, if you wait too long, the nurse will come back and tell me I'm a-ok-"

Mulder's word was drowned out by a minor commotion in the hallway outside the examination room. Scully and Mulder went to the doorway and looked out at a fairly common scene in a hospital: a group of emergency room attendants was clustered around two boys, one on a stretcher, the other hovering near the stretcher's end. "He got hit on his leg," the boy was saying to a doctor, his voice distraught. "I saw it, he ran right into the truck!"

"It's going to be all right, Jeremy," the doctor said calmly. "We'll get some x-rays of Isaac's leg, and then we'll decide if we need to operate to set the bone. You did the right thing, though, coming here immediately instead of driving back to La Push."

Mulder and Scully exchanged surprised looks. La Push kids, here? In this hosital?

"It doesn't look too serious, Dr. Gerandy," said one of the nurses in the group. "The paramedics said the boy was talking to them and everything. They think it's mild shock, if any."

"I don't think I'm in shock," the boy on the stretcher, Isaac, said in a dazed voice. "But this leg hurts like crap, Doctor."

"We'll have you comfortable in just a minute, Isaac, don't worry."

"Hope so, it's really starting to hurt now."

"Okay, we'll take care of that soon."

It happened so suddenly, so without warning, that Scully wondered for a moment if it was real. Dr. Gerandy moved out of the boy's line of sight to walk alongside the stretcher, revealing the figure of another doctor in scrubs passing by, obviously on his way to another operation. The doctor looked over at the group with which he was now abreast, his pale face mildly interested. There could only be one man in the entire hospital with _that_ face, Scully knew.

It took Scully about as long as it took Isaac to recognize Carlisle Cullen, which was about a tenth of a second. But that tenth of a second was enough for both of them. When Carlisle's eyes rested on the stretcher, Isaac gave a shuddering gasp and visibly jolted where he lay, his face blank with terror and his lips spelling out two short words.

Isaac began to tremor violently, his gasping breath audible to Scully from five feet away.

"What-?" One of the nurses stared at Isaac in shock. "Dr. Gerandy, I think he's having a seizure!"

"What?" Dr. Gerandy moved quickly to the stretcher and made a rapid assessment. "You're right, Amy." The doctor sounded like he couldn't believe it, either, but he sprang into action. "Get him to Room 12! Jeremy, I'm afraid you'll have to stay here," he told the other Quileute boy, and then rushed off with the stretcher, still doling out orders to the nurses.

Mulder and Scully sagged against the doorframe of their room in stunned silence. Jeremy, too, slumped in shock in the middle of the hallway, staring after the spot where his friend had disappeared. The boy's face was stark white despite his tan skin, and his lips were tight.

"Did you see what I just saw, Scully?" asked Mulder quietly, keeping his voice low so Jeremy wouldn't hear him.

"I-I don't know," Scully said, finding her own voice. What had they witnessed? A coincidence, or a clue?

"It looked to me," Mulder went on in the same tone, "like Isaac was fine...until Carlisle Cullen walked by."

"That's...what it looked like," Scully said, nodding, still shaken. "But, that seems like such an overreaction to old legends..." She lapsed into silence again.

"Well, maybe Isaac knows something we don't," said Mulder, his eyes trailing the same spot Jeremy's had. "Did you happen to see what he said, before his attack?"

"It doesn't prove anything," Scully said, too emphatically.

Mulder turned to look at her, startled. "What was it, though, Scully?"

Scully closed her eyes and and wet her lips, unwilling to say the two simple words. _It didn't mean anything, it could be superstition, and that's all. _"Cold One," she whispered. "He said, 'Cold One.'"


	14. Chapter 14 Delusional?

**Author's Note: Chapter Fourteen right on top of Thirteen! My goodness, what are we to do? **

**I have a clue for you, dear reader- *this is where it starts to get really interesting* **

**Thank you! **

14. Delusional?

The car ride back to their hotel was a silent one.

Mulder and Scully watched the rain splatter against the windshield without a single word between them. The silence wasn't tense or uncomfortable because of their attitudes toward each other-it was tense and uncomfortable because of the thoughts they didn't verbalize. Scully could practically hear the gears whirring in Mulder's brain. What they had seen at the hospital would undoubtedly confirm his suspicions about the Cullens in his mind.

It did look strange, Scully had to admit. Isaac's seizure was triggered by the sight of Carlisle Cullen, that was true. But did that boil down to anything other than rampant superstition? Or did Isaac have inside information on the case that she and Mulder didn't have?

"We have to talk to him," Mulder finally said, as they made their way to their rooms.

"Isaac?" Scully asked.

Mulder nodded, slinging his wet jacket over his shoulder. "He must know something."

Scully paused. "Honestly, Mulder, by the look of that seizure, I don't know if we're going to get the chance."

Mulder looked shocked. "That couldn't have killed him, could it? Not a kid his age!"

"No, not kill him-but he could be too confused for us to interview him. That depends on whether or not he has epilepsy, or if that was a singular event." Scully shivered, Isaac's terror-stricken face appearing in her mind's eye. "I have a hard time believing that he doesn't have seizures periodically, though. Of course, he wasn't wearing a band..."

Mulder shook himself a little and dug his key out of his pocket. "I'm going to go take a shower, and I'll meet you downstairs in a few minutes."

"Right. Get out of those wet clothes."

Scully took her own key out and dumped her bag onto the cheap armchair just inside her room, stretching her arms above her head in an attempt to shake off some of the tension in her shoulders. She tried to comfort herself with the fact that she now had some solid DNA evidence to send to Seattle. _Something_ had gone well with this case. But the more optimistic feelings she raised, the more depressed she became. For all she and Mulder knew, the real killer of those two women was in Arizona by now, never to be seen in Forks again.

Sighing, Scully went to her bag, retrieved the samples, then stuck them in the minicooler on the table. She took out the reports on the case and sat down to go over them another time, counting the number of pages meticulously. Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen-

Eighteen? Eighteen pages? Scully flipped through the reports again, counting each number aloud as they folded under her finger. "Fourteen-" accentuated by a quiet _thip_ as the page got caught on her thumb, "fifteen-sixteen-seventeen-"

Eighteen. With a quickness bordering on panic, Scully peeled back the seventeen other pages to stare at the last sheet of paper. The last page was the official report sent to Mulder by the Forks Police Department, which she'd stored at the bottom as least important. Mulder had put more stock into Dr. Snow's official report than the police summary. Starting from page sixteen, Scully looked at each heading on the papers. These were pages she'd mentally catalogued that morning, pages she had vowed to herself not to lose.

Where had the extra page come from?

She found her answer on page nine.

Summary Autopsy Report

Forks Hospital

Presiding Physician: Matthew Snow, M.D.

Assistant: Erika Edwards, M.D.

Subject: Allison Pratchett

"No," said Scully. She had misplaced that report, she was sure of it! It would be so humiliating if she had told Mulder she lost it, and it had been in her bag the whole time. Scully felt her cheeks flush as she pictured herself admitting to Mulder that she had overlooked the report.

And yet, as she stared in shame at the piece of paper in her hands, she noticed something different about the report. The last time she had seen it, the paper had had a wrinkled edge on the top left corner, and a small oil stain from a finger there as well. There was no such wrinkle or stain on this sheet of paper. Brow furrowed, Scully looked over the whole report. The ink was the same, black with a type-writer style font, and the boxes dividing each section of the examination fit her memory. And yet, the report itself seemed off.

"Date and Hour Autospy Performed" was in order; she remembered that much, and the time was correct.

But the physical notations of the body were wrong. The mutilated limbs, the one bone protruding from the left bicep, and the lacerations on the arms remained, but the bite marks were gone. According to _this_ autospy report, Allison Pratchett had never been subjected to the teeth of a male from somewhere between 18-35 years of age. And, Scully read with incredulity, this autopsy report affirmed that all the injuries made to the body were before the time of death, whereas the other report had said the mutilations happened mostly after Pratchett was dead.

Either she was going crazy, or someone had taken her autopsy report, retyped another one, and somehow replaced the old one with this new, forged copy.

She must be crazy, Scully concluded.

"Scully?" Mulder rapped his hand against her door, jerking her from her study of the report.

"Come in, Mulder, but leave the door open," Scully said absently.

"Are you up for one more adventure before we call it a day?" asked Mulder, forgetting her request as he shut the door.

"That depends on the nature of the adventure. If it involves more cliff-diving or stealing DNA, count me out."

"Luckily for you, it involves neither. I figured we could go see Chief Swan before he leaves for home today and ask him a few questions about the case."

"Mmhmm," said Scully. Was it possible for someone to plant a single sheet of paper into her bag in the middle of the other sheets without her knowing it?

"So far, we don't really have any information on our suspects outside of town gossip. I think we should check with the Chief and see if any of the Cullens or the Quileutes have a criminal record of any kind."

"Sure, Mulder." It just didn't seem feasible...

"And then I thought we'd rub ourselves in cat food, roll up in sleeping bags, and hang ourselves in trees as bait for the vampires," Mulder said, provoked by her lack of interest. "Have you heard anything I said, Scully?"

"Yes, Mulder, but I'm a little preoccupied." Scully looked up and threw him a smile. "Sorry."

"What's got you so enthralled, if I may ask?" Mulder walked over to the table to gaze over her shoulder at the report. "Hey, you found it."

"I must have, but it doesn't look the same. I don't think it's the same report." Smoothing her thumb over the edge that had been stained, Scully shook her head. "I think someone might have replaced the original for a modified copy."

"What?" Mulder's eyes opened wide. "That's not possible. You've had that bag on your shoulder all day, how could someone..." Then his eyes grew wider. "Did the two Cullen kids have any time alone with your bag, Scully?"

"Oh, Mulder, that's just-"

"They're the only two people who have had any kind of access whatsoever to that bag," Mulder argued.

After a moment with her lips pursed, Scully had to concede that point to her partner. "That's true. But I know _they_ didn't forge this autopsy report. The medical terminology is too thorough. Although, they could have just taken out the parts with the bite marks. They might know that much from having a surgeon as their-"

Mulder literally banged his head on the back of her chair. Scully jumped. "Carlisle Cullen forged that darned autopsy report, Scully! Does that _never _occur to you?"

"It would hardly be wise in his position to steal and forge government property," Scully said, reflexively defending her lapse in thinking outside the box.

Mulder groaned in pure frustration, taking his hands off the chair to rub them over his face.

"He's a doctor, Mulder. If we caught him replacing this document, there would have been serious, serious ramifications for his career. I can't imagine that a man who must be extremely intelligent would do something so asinine."

"Just because you wouldn't jeopardize your license doesn't mean all doctors won't jeopardize their licenses," groaned Mulder. "I don't see how this doesn't _prove _to you that we're on the right track by hounding out the Cullens."

"We have no _proof_ that the Cullens did this," Scully said hotly. "You're assuming things all over the place in this investigation, Mulder. And I can't blame you, we don't have that much to go on, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater."

"Wrong expression," said Mulder, raising his head. "'Don't count our chickens before they hatch' is what you're going for."

Scully glowered at him. "You know what I meant."

"Obviously," sighed Mulder, dropping his forehead into his palms. "I need an aspirin. Can I have an aspirin, Scully?"

"There's one in my bag," said Scully, her irritation evaporating as she watched Mulder. "You wouldn't have a headache if you didn't go banging your forehead on hard surfaces, you know," she remarked, her hands buried in her tote.

"What a comedian," said Mulder. "Just give me the meds, Doctor."

Scully smiled and turned to him, the packet in her hand. Then she froze, the aspirin falling to the floor out of her grip. "There was a face at the window," she gasped, praying she hadn't fabricated that flicker of skin in the large glass pane.

Mulder shot to his feet and faced the window. His hand flew automatically to his gun holster. "Just now?"

"Yes, I just saw it." Scully and Mulder ran to either sides of the window, pressing against the mauve curtains framing it. The view beyond the glass was of dreary, rain-drenched pavement and distant trees, vacant of any sign of life.

"I can't see anything," Mulder whispered. "Are you sure it was there?"

"It was a boy of about eighteen," Scully answered him in a whisper of her own. "He had white skin and red hair. I know he was there!"


	15. Chapter 15 Watchful

**Author's note: I want to make a very important note right here, so please read this AN. ALL POV'S THAT DO NOT END IN QUESTION MARKS ARE FROM A CHARACTER OTHER THAN SCULLY'S POV. This means that, if the chapter heading isn't a question, it is not Scully's POV. With that in mind, this chapter will make a lot more sense. I've gotten reviews before telling me I need to make POV's more clear, so I wanted to make sure this was understood. **

**Let's see...a song for this chapter? Well, it's rather short, but I think this POV deserves its own tune. So, I'm going to suggest Bach's Organ Fugue in G minor. Here's the link: .com/watch?v=x1Vm6_mn4ME Some classical music to accompany the X-Files!**

**Enjoy!**

15. Watchful

He watched them from the window of the hotel room, the window with the wide red curtains.

The short one was the one he wanted.

A female with short, strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes. She always wore suits, and she carried around a bag with her wherever she went. She was very small, but she wore the gun with authority. It would do her no good against him. From the reactions of some of the males with which she came into contact, she was attractive for a human. He didn't really care. That's not why he wanted her.

It was her blood that called to him. And her blood was what mattered to him, and nothing else.

He watched them talk about the red-haired one's visit to their window. He knew the other hunter had followed him to their hotel, and that the redhead had left his scent to warn him off the hunt. It struck him that the redhead wasn't willing to part with this sweet blood without a fight. The other hunter had hovered by their room, searching the trees and parking lot, making it clear that the short one was already claimed.

He didn't care. The redhead would not stop him. Nor would the older blonde one, the one that took his blood directly from the hospital. They wouldn't stop him from taking his prey.

He would stop at nothing for this blood.

He watched them walk out of the room, vanish from his sight as they traveled through the hotel, and end up on the sidewalk. He noticed how the short one's mate, the dark-haired male, kept his hand close to her back, scanning the area with his eyes. Her mate didn't trust this town as she did. The mate would be very hard to surprise, wary as he was of the other hunters and their strange yellow eyes. And yet the mate's blood would probably be worth the trouble, as well.

It didn't matter. He would get her blood, and soon. He couldn't wait much longer.

So he watched them get in their car, and decided to wait.


	16. Chapter 16 Usual Suspect?

**Author's Note: Here we are! Another update! Yes! **

**I think I need to make a rather important note about this story: I have started school again (Anatomy and Physiology, Human Growth and Development, and Sociology, anyone?) and I have a large load this time around, so I will not get to spend as much time with the plot on POST MORTEM. I just wanted everyone to know that ahead of time, in the event that I make a plot hole as big as a crater on the moon. **

**This chapter's song: You Are Familiar by Secret and Whisper (there's even a Twilight video of this song-link provided!)**

.com/watch?v=28TaVU43HPI** It seemed appropriate. :) Enjoy!**

16. Usual Suspect?

"Chief Swan, do you have a minute?"

The chief looked like he very much wanted to tell them, no, he didn't, but he put his car keys away and nodded. "Sure. What is it, Agent Scully?"

Scully organized her thoughts for a moment, then spoke. "Do you have any problems with teenagers loitering or looking in on people in this town?"

Raising his eyebrows, Chief Swan asked the inevitable question. "No, have you had this happen to you?"

"Just about fifteen minutes ago, there was someone at my hotel window, looking in while Mulder and I went through some documents. He was close to the glass, so I know that's what he was doing."

"Hmm." The police chief walked to his car, Mulder and Scully following him. "We've had a couple calls the last few years-kids will go spy on their next door neighbors for kicks, or they'll go bother the local elderly grouch. But we've never had consistent offenders. There aren't really that many bad kids in Forks."

Mulder interjected then, speaking mostly to Scully. "So this could be related to our investigation?"

"It's possible," Chief Swan answered, taking the words out of Scully's mouth, "but I have a hard time believing that a kid could commit these atrocious murders, Agent Mulder. I mean, these go beyond normal, even for killers. These are just..." he trailed off, but Scully knew the feeling he couldn't articulate.

"Maybe a kid couldn't physically kill those women, but he could very easily be involved," said Mulder. "Accessories to murder don't have to do the dirty work to be guilty."

"What exactly do you think he was doing, Mr. Mulder?" Chief Swan inquired, an edge of impatience to his voice.

"We don't know, and that's what bothers me."

"Well..." The chief seemed to be weighing something in his mind, and eventually shrugged. "Why don't you come on over to my house, and we can discuss the case some more? My daughter should have some dinner ready by now."

"Oh, we wouldn't want to intrude," Scully said. Inwardly, she was pleased; they might get a better hold on the case with information from the police.

"Bella won't mind," said Chief Swan. "In fact, she might not even be home. I'll pull out first, and you can follow me over there."

Mulder frowned the whole way over to the Swan residence, his face darker than usual. Scully didn't ask what the matter was, because she already knew. This case had thrown both of them off their rythms, unsettling them. There was no crime scene evidence and no solid leads. Without something to analyze, something to build on, how could there be a case? All they had was Mulder's intuition, which, though accurate, had been known to put both partners at risk. Scully wondered if pursuing this string of murders was meant for the X-Files. Maybe they should leave it to the Seattle police force.

"We'll get something out of this discussion," Mulder said, as they parked before the chief's modest house. "We are not giving up on this case, all right?"

Scully looked up at Mulder, reading the determination in his eyes. Mulder's commitment to the cases that fascinated him had been one of the main reasons they had become so close. His burning desire to plumb the depths of a challenging case never ceased to amaze her. "Are you all right?" she asked.

Mulder looked surprised by her question. "Do I not look all right?"

"You seem to be brooding a little."

"Oh. I am, I guess." Mulder led the way to the door of the house. "I'm mainly concerned with why that man was looking in your hotel room."

"You are?" Scully blinked. That was unexpected. She had assumed he was dwelling on the dead-end nature of their investigation, not the peeping-tom wannabe.

"Yes, Scully, I do care about what some teenager was doing hanging outside your room," Mulder said, smirking good-naturedly. "His intentions might not have been to purely enjoy the aesthetic appeal."

Before Scully could ask Mulder what kind of _aesthetic appeal _he was talking about and whether or not he knew how dirty-minded that sounded, Chief Swan opened the door and ushered them inside. "Sorry to keep you waiting, I just had to tidy up the living room a little. You can leave your coats on the kitchen table. I've got some coffee going, too."

"Thank you, Chief," Mulder and Scully said at the same time.

"It's no trouble," Chief Swan answered, smiling at their synchronicity. "Now, where should we start?"

They summarized the case for him, Scully laying down the bare facts and Mulder embellishing with his own theories (but thankfully excluding the vampire mumbo-jumbo). Chief Swan listened attentively, halting their conversation at intervals to refill their coffee cups. Calm receptivity and thoughtful processing were clearly the chief's strong points. Scully was glad for him that he lived in a town with mostly domestic disturbances, as he seemed like the kind of man who was better suited to listening to a woman who had locked her keys in her car than inerrogating prospective murderers. She was beginning to really like Chief Swan.

"You sound like you're on to something with the idea of the Quileutes," the chief remarked, as they concluded their current suspicions. "But I still think you're way off base with the Cullens. Dr. Cullen is one of the most respected doctors in this town, and his wife is a sweet lady. They just don't strike me as violent people."

Mulder set his coffee mug down and traced the rim of it with his finger. "Do you know the Cullens well, Chief Swan?"

"No one does, to be honest," said Chief Swan, with a lift of his shoulders. "But I'd say I'm better acquainted than most-Edward Cullen has been my daughter's boyfriend now for about two months."

"_What?_" Scully hadn't meant to say that out loud, but her astonishment at this new development wrenched it out of her. "Your daughter is seeing one of the Cullens?"

"Yes," Chief Swan said, grudgingly. "Edward Cullen. He's the youngest, right after Alice." Scully felt a small jolt of recognition when she heard Alice's name.

"Well, that's..." Mulder didn't know what to say, either.

"He's a pretty good kid," sighed Chief Swan, as though giving that much of a compliment to his daughter's interest was too much. "Pretty reserved, though. He doesn't say much when I'm around."

"From what we understand, the whole family is withdrawn," said Scully.

The police chief shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. "I'm not an overly social person, myself, and neither is Bella. I don't automatically think that makes a family suspicious."

"It doesn't, but it alienates others. When I asked about the Cullens in town, most people had the impression that they shunned company out of a superiority issue."

"That's an easy assumption for the locals to make, seeing as they _are_ fabulously wealthy," put in Chief Swan dryly. "Dr. Gerandy has been in surgery for fifteen years and he hasn't got the money that Carlisle has."

Scully noted how the chief used Dr. Cullen's first name as well as his formal one. She opened her mouth to ask what the chief himself thought about the Cullens' reasons for seclusion, but then the front door swung open with a creak to admit two teenagers into the kitchen. The first one, a girl with long brown hair and a thin frame, called out, "Dad, I'm ho-" before she caught sight of Mulder and Scully. Her brown eyes widened. "Who-"

The second teenager still stood in the doorway, and Scully knew him at once. He was stunningly beautiful, just like the others, and perhaps more so. He had the same icy-pale complexion as his adopted siblings, and his wary eyes were the same unique amber hue as his foster father's. His whole tall, well-built frame was frozen as he took in the two agents sitting at the Swans' table. He hid his uneasiness well, and if Scully had not been staring so avidly at him, she never would have noticed his tense posture.

But all this wasn't how she could identify him so quickly. It was his hair that made the connection in her mind: his shimmering, coppery hair, more bronze than red. It was drenched from a downpour now, but Scully knew it was the same head of hair. She had seen it only an hour ago.

Edward Cullen had been the boy at her hotel window.


	17. Chapter 17 Perfume Pheromones?

**Author's Note: *hint* The good stuff is fast approaching on the horizon...**

**No song this time, sorry guys. I couldn't think of one. But if you have a suggestion, I'd love to hear it!**

**Enjoy...**

17. Perfume Pheremones?

"Oh, I should introduce everyone." Chief Swan stood and gestured awkwardly to Mulder and Scully. "Bella, this is Agent Mulder-" Mulder nodded, oblivious to Scully's epiphany, "and this is Dr. Scully. They're here to work on that case I told you about, with the two women. Agent Mulder, Agent Scully, this is my daughter, Isabella."

"Bella," the girl said quickly.

"Nice to meet you, Bella," Mulder said, smiling. Scully managed to smile, too, but she was incapable of copying Mulder's sentiment. She was still staring at the boy behind Isabella Swan.

"And this is Edward," Chief Swan continued in a more gruff voice, "Edward Cullen. Edward, this is Agent Mulder and Agent Scully." The chief did not mention the case to Edward.

"It's a pleasure," Edward said, his elegant voice a match for his physical perfection.

"I thought you kids were going to swing by and pick up Alice?"

Bella spoke, hurrying her words like she needed to fill the silence for her reserved boyfriend. "We were, Dad, but it turns out she had other plans with Jasper today. I'm sorry I didn't get back sooner, dinner will be a little late."

"That's all right, Bells," the chief said, disappointment in his face. "Take your time."

"Actually, I'm going to need some stuff from the store for my steaks tonight. We'd better go. It was nice to meet you," Bella said to Mulder and Scully. She turned, holding out her hand to her boyfriend. "Edward, would you help me?"

Edward's face broke out of its tight mold as he gently put his arm around Bella, opened the door again, and helped her off the porch, supporting most of her weight with his body. Scully saw, now that the epiphany had worn off somewhat, that one of Bella's legs was encased in a thick walking cast. As she watched the two of them cross the yard, Edward swung Bella completely into his arms, carrying her to the dilapidated truck in the drive. Not only was he abnormally attractive for a high school junior, he was also abnormally strong. If Mulder noticed, he would check off two points on his list of vampire attributes for Edward.

"So, that's my daughter," said Chief Swan. "Pretty, isn't she?" He glowed ever so slightly with parental pride.

"She has beautiful skin," Scully said, her mind on Edward Cullen.

"But what happened to her leg?" asked Mulder.

The chief's expression soured. "It's a long story. Long story short, she fell down a flight of stairs and fell out a window. She ended up breaking her leg, cutting her scalp, fracturing a couple ribs, and losing a lot of blood. Not one of Bella's better days."

"I hope she's all right now," said Mulder, but he exchanged a look with Scully. She was sure that look was to communicate the fact that he had not missed the phrase"losing a lot of blood"in the chief's explanation.

"She's doing better, thanks."

"I take it this happened not too long ago, since she still has the cast."

"She fell just about two months ago, give or take a week." The chief gave them both a searching look. "Carlisle was the one who saved her, you know. He got to her right after she fell and stopped the bleeding, or so I'm told."

Scully raised her eyebrows. "Really?" Mulder would have a hard time fitting _that_ into his Vampire Cullen Theory.

"That's what Edward and Bella told me," said the chief. "You can see now why I have trouble configuring your suspicions about Carlisle with my own ideas, don't you, Agent Mulder?"

"I can." Mulder stood. "Well, thank you for the coffee, Chief Swan. If you have any more ideas about the case, please let us know. It wounds my ego to admit it, but we're grasping at straws with this one."

"I'll do that," Chief Swan promised, escorting them to his door. "Right now, my team has just been working on a prediction of where the killer might go and who he might attack next, but I'll call you if I have any clues."

"Thanks."

"Well," Scully said, as soon as they were inside their car, "now we know who was looking in my window."

"What?" Mulder jerked the steering wheel a little too hard to the left as they pulled out of Chief Swan's drive. "Edward Cullen? _He_ was the kid at your window?"

"I would recognize him anywhere," Scully said sardonically, the boy's beautiful features foremost in her mind. "His hair is too distinct a shade to forget."

"Scully..." Mulder mercifully kept his thoughts to himself. Scully felt too fatigued to fend off his far-fetched theories. She leaned her head against the passenger seat and closed her eyes, imagining what she would have been doing at her house had she not agreed to this case. Most likely, she would have been sitting discontentedly on her couch, wishing for a case to interest her.

Unfortunately, her partner's silence only lasted until they got back to the hotel. Mulder brought up the subject of Edward Cullen again with zero tact. "So he must have something to do with this case. I wonder how he knew which room was yours."

Scully knew that, this time, she would have to give in. "It does seem like the Cullens must have a part in our investigation. Otherwise, I don't see why Edward would be watching us, unless out of morbid curiosity."

"It fits in with the fact that your autopsy report went missing when you ran into Carlisle Cullen and that the two people who could have replaced the report were Alice and Jasper Cullen. The Cullens don't want us to link them to this case, Scully. They're trying to hide something from us."

"They aren't going about it very intelligently."

"Well, maybe they're desperate. If they have any idea of the Quileutes' involvement, they'll want to make it look like they can't possibly be related to this case, won't they?"

"How is stealing my report and then personally looking in on my perusal of that fake report going to help matters?" asked Scully. "It looks twice as suspicious as not acknowledging us at all."

"I don't know," Mulder said in frustration. "Their whole behavior is too obvious. We're missing something, I know it." As they climbed out of the car, he slammed his door with more force than neccesary. "Tomorrow I plan to go talk to the Quileute leaders again," Mulder continued, waiting for Scully to start up the outside steps of the hotel first. "I have to know the complete story about the Cold Ones for any of this to fit together."

"Good, Mulder," yawned Scully, checking her watch. "Right now, let's get something to eat. It's been a long day."

Mulder let the subject drop and made sure Scully was safely inside her room before returning to his own. Elongating her spine with a tall stretch, Scully unbuttoned her jacket to lay it on the back of a chair. She stopped, however, when she felt a rush of cold air over her ankles accompanied by a sweet smell, like an exotic flower. Scully walked forward, tracking the draft and scent with her feet, and came to a stop in front of the window.

The open window.

Scully pulled her firearm. "Mulder! I think we've got a situation, here!"

Five seconds hadn't passed before Mulder was back in her room, his gun held in a defensive point in front of him. "What? What is it?"

"The window's open," said Scully, gesturing with her firearm. "We didn't leave it open."

"I've got the bathroom," Mulder announced, and slunk into the suite's cramped toiletry area. "There's nothing here," he reported, emerging again. "I'll check the bed, too."

"Well, obviously there's no one out here," Scully said, turning in a circle to survey the kitchen. "But windows don't just open themslves. Not in most towns, at any rate."

"It wasn't forced, though," Mulder remarked. "Maybe they came in through the door and left through the window."

Prickles broke out on the back of Scully's neck. "So you think this room isn't secure? Someone else has a key to it?"

"Or someone's really good at breaking and entering."

"That someone being a woman," Scully supplied.

Mulder blinked. "Why would you think that?"

"Don't you smell her perfume? It's leading out through the window, but you can smell it almost to the door."

"Hmmm." Like his usual inquisitive self, her partner backed up to the entryway, inhaling as he went. "Wow. You're right, there is a strong scent here, but I'm not so sure it's perfume."

"What else could it be? Pheromones?"

"You never know."

"Mulder," Scully said, squeezing her eyes shut, "I was kidding."

"I'm not."

"No, of course not," sighed Scully. She was probably going to regret putting that thought in his head, filled as it was with vampires, werewolves, and psychotic, blood-drinking doctors.


	18. Chapter 18 To Catch A Stalker?

**Author's Note: Yay! Chapter Eighteen! And it's yet another cliff-hanger...**

**It may strike you all as funny-or not so funny-that I derived this idea of Scully's medical dream from my own nightmares. I'm studying medicine myself, and I have this cool Cd with pictures of dissected cadavers for my class (we don't have real cadavers at my school). Anyway, the point is, I have dreams similar to this one that are quite freaky, all due to that little piece of plastic called Anatomy and Physiology *magical music* REVEALED. And thus, Scully's night terrors were born. ;) These dreams also are important to the plot, believe it or not. And I just rhymed...**

**Song for this chapter (and I really love this song, it's so appropriate for the story): The Morning After Dark by Timbaland .com/watch?v=zQV6EAlGCy8**

**Enjoy!**

18. To Catch A Stalker?

The resident psychotic, blood-drinking doctor of Forks played the leading role in Scully's nightmare that evening.

_She woke up with a groggy head and blinked at the blinding overhead lights. She tried to reach up and turn off the lamp just above her, but her arms were stuck fast to her side. As she looked down, she realized she was wrapped in packing tape from her chest to her legs. Scully tried to wiggle her way free from the wrapping, but she couldn't. The tape was suffocating her, it was wrapped so tightly. Then she realized she was wearing nothing but her pair of autopsy scrubs. Her gun was gone. _

_ "Here she is, Carlisle," said a voice above her. Scully saw the beautiful face of Edward Cullen as he came into the examination room, decked out in full surgeon's garb. He smirked at Scully and leaned against the wall. "I caught her taking samples from the Brooks woman's corpse."_

_ "Excellent job, Edward." Scully didn't see Carlisle Cullen come in, but suddenly he was standing right over her. The doctor's eyes weren't their usual amber-they were red, and they were fitting accompaniment to the large scalpel in his hand. "You should have trusted Agent Mulder, Dana," said Carlisle, smiling in the most frightening way. He took her face in one hand and readied the scalpel with the other. "It's unfortunate that we couldn't let either of you bring this information back to the FBI."_

_ "No," Scully said, fighting to wrest her chin from his grip. "Stop it! I'm a federal agent!"_

_ "Edward, I'm going to need your help with this."_

_ Edward chuckled. "Of course."_

_ "You can't do this!" shouted Scully. "Mulder! Mulder!"_

_ "The subject is Dana Katherine Scully, a white female, five feet and three inches." The two vampires hovered over Scully as she fought to escape. "Time of death-" Dr. Cullen checked his watch, "ten forty-five p.m."_

_ "Mulder, help! Mulder!"_

_ Edward leaned over with a syringe and inserted it with clinical precision into Scully's neck. "You'll be glad I did that," said the teenage psychopath, nodding seriously. _

_ "Mulder..." _

_ Scully was fading out, but she could still hear and see the doctor as he applied the scalpel to her neck. "Go make sure that Jasper has Mulder under control..."_

"Uh!" Scully sat straight up in bed, blindly grabbing for her firearm. She talked to herself to calm down. "Okay, okay," Scully said, "it was just a dream, Dana, just a dream..." Slowly, she put her gun back on the table and sank onto her mattress, rubbing her eyes. It was a dream, and she could relax, now. But her body refused to loosen up. Exhaling, Scully rolled off her bed and paced through the hotel room, checking all the alcoves and dark spaces.

There was nothing to find-no crazy vampires hiding in the closet, ready to spring out and attack her with a syringe and scalpel. But she could have sworn something, some _presence _in her room, had woken her up. She had thought, for a split second, that she'd seen a face above her as she opened her eyes.

This town was driving her out of her mind, Scully concluded. She was beginning to sound more like Mulder every hour she stayed here. She needed some coffee, and she needed some paperwork to occupy her time.

She put on a karafe of coffee before sliding her feet into her loafers and walking to her door. Mulder had taken the paperwork with him to study it one last time before bed, therefore she would have to go all the way down to his room, wake him up, and take back the tote bag. When she opened her door, however, a rather heavy weight fell on top of her legs. Staggering back, Scully let out a loud gasp, then a relieved laugh. "Mulder!"

Mulder started awake with an incoherent word, his hand flying to his holstered gun. "Wahusl-ahhhh, Scully," he groaned, "what are you doing up so early?" He fingered the back of his head. "And why did you open your door?" he added, rising stiffly to his feet.

"I don't know, why were you on the other side of it, fast asleep?" said Scully teasingly. Internally, she was touched; Mulder had been keeping watch for her. He always went above and beyond what was required of a partner. Scully found that side of him, the innately protective side, at once sweet and slightly irritating. "That's not really necessary, Mulder," she said.

"I know it isn't necessary for you to fling open your door at who knows what time and knock me over," said Mulder. "You could at least warn a guy when you plan these midnight excursions."

"It's actually-" Scully leaned back to read the bedside alarm clock, "four thirty. Have you been here all night?"

"That's kind of the point of a vigil, isn't it?" Gingerly rubbing his back, Mulder threw her a weary look. "Do you have any coffee?"

"I was just making some," Scully smiled. "Come in and have a seat. Maybe we can go over those documents..._again_."

"I think that would be a waste of time, honestly," Mulder said, as they trudged back into her room. "We can't glean any more information from the records. We'll just have to interrogate one or more of our suspects." He eyed the coffee pot greedily. "How many cups did you make?"

"Enough for the both of us, if we skimp." Scully sat down across from her partner and finger-combed her hair. "Mulder, if we just start hauling in people to question them, this town will be infested with gossip. Can you imagine the reaction we'd get if it was let slip that we had brought in Carlisle Cullen for a _murder_ case? His family-"

"Is in on his scheme, whatever it is," interrupted Mulder. "Look, Scully, I'm not worried so much about the Cullens' reputation as the fact that they're so keen on keeping it spotless. Why go to the trouble of replacing your autopsy report if it didn't mean something to them, if they didn't think we knew they were somehow invovled? And even more so, why did they feel the need to omit the part of the report that had to do with the bite marks on the victim?"

Scully blotted the image of the red-eyed surgeon from her dream out of her mind. "I'm not denying their rather condemning behavior, but the problem is we can't prove that they took anything. We can't have them detained because they act strange."

"Yes, we can," Mulder said. "These people don't know anything about FBI codes."

"So you want to abuse our power in a town where the police know the rule books by heart because they have nothing else to do?" retorted Scully. "That's not one of your better plans, Mulder."

Mulder let out a gusty sigh and massaged his forehead. "Can we talk about this after coffee? You have no idea how hard it is to find a comfortable spot on a hotel floor."

Scully smiled. "Sure." She went to the counter, scouted out two white, generic mugs, and poured herself and her partner a cup of coffee, remembering at the last second to add sugar (but NO cream) to Mulder's. Mulder welcomed her back to the table by snatching the mug from her hand, testing the coffee with his lips before taking a sip. "That's right off the burner," Scully cautioned.

"Mmmm," Mulder inhaled the steam rising from the black drink, "esophagus-scalding. Just the way I like it."

Putting her own cup to her lips, Scully smelled the aromatic drink. The hotel didn't sacrifice quality for affordability, at least; the coffee smelled as good as the brand she purchased for her personal coffee maker. But something was off about the scent. It smelled too organic, like tea, almost. Scully stuck her nose closer to the cup. That scent wasn't coming from her coffee, she finally realized.

"Are you wearing new aftershave?" she asked Mulder.

Mulder raised his eyebrows. "Scully, you know I'm not into Metro Man."

"Then what's that scent?"

Frowning, they both inhaled at once. Mulder set down his coffee mug and stood, following the smell like he had the last one, the floral one. "This is different than that perfume," he said slowly. "And I think it came from the window."

Scully had had just about enough of mysterious scents invading her personal space. "So are you telling me that you think another person wearing some kind of perfume broke into my room?" she demanded, clutching her mug with tense fingers.

"I...maybe." Mulder looked as thrilled about his discovery as Scully. "It could just be a scent from the forest. Wandering wildflower pollen?"

"Not likely, Mulder, but thanks for the attempt." Scully set her cup down with a clack and grabbed her tote from off the back of a chair, stuffing her phone, wallet, and pens into its side pocket. She grabbed one of her suits-the one with navy pants and a faux tux shirt- from the closet and stomped into the bathroom.

"Um, where are you going, Scully?"

"Your room," Scully said from inside the toilet cubicle. She changed quickly, ran her fingers through her hair, and slid her feet back into her loafers. "If some teenage deviant is breaking into my room at night, I'm not going to wait around for him," she declared. "We should leave all my things in here but a change of clothes and my tote and wait for the security cameras to catch him on tape."

"Security cameras?"

"Yes, there's one in the lobby, one outside near the dumpsters, and two down this hallway."

"That...is a good idea," Mulder said, following her to the door with his mug in hand. "But know this: the bathroom in my suite is just as small as the one in yours."

"I think we'll survive. It's only for this one night. Once we know who it is that's breaking in..." Scully smiled grimly. "_Then_ we'll abuse our power to the full extent of the law."

And Heaven help him, she added silently. If there was one thing Scully hated more than the obstruction of justice, it was stalkers.


	19. Chapter 19 Unfolding

**Author's Note: Remember the chapter where I said THE POV'S WHOSE CHAPTER HEADING IS NOT A QUESTION = SOMEBODY BESIDES SCULLY'S POV? Remember that. **

**Song for this chapter: Mind Heist by Zack Dempsey. Sorry, no link.**

19. Unfolding

He could smell a new scent. It was overpowering, fresh. He hated this scent, because it blotted out hers. And he needed her scent to know what he needed to do.

As he crouched beneath her window, a faint growl slid from between his teeth. Who were they, to think that her blood belonged to them, and only them? He had caught the scent first; he had followed her from the wolves' border. She was _his_.

_"No, she isn't."_

The hiss was close, from behind the dumpster. He spun around, growling. It was the red-haired one, the one who guarded her window each night. He should have known the redhead wouldn't leave her alone. He should have known, but the redhead's scent was masked by the newer, strong one.

The redhead slid from the shadow of the dumpster in an angry crouch, stalking toward him. He held his ground, baring his teeth. The redhead was no match for him in a fight. He would fight for her blood and win, and the drink would be all the sweeter for it.

"She's ours." The redhead's lip curled.

He snapped his teeth together and lunged forward. He would warn the redhead, this pitiful fighter. The redhead didn't flinch, his golden eyes cold.

"Her blood is _ours_," the redhead hissed slowly, "and if you try to steal it, we will tear you apart ourselves and save the wolf the trouble."

From within the hotel came the sound of the female and her mate talking, traveling down a hallway. Both he and the redhead stopped to listen. Inhaling, he was again reminded of the other scent, and how it stopped him from smelling her.

He would have her blood, and no one would stop him. Not the redhead or his coven. But for now, he would wait.

"I will fight for her," he promised the redhead. "And I will win!"

The redhead smiled.


	20. Chapter 20 Mulder Intuition?

**Author's Note: Another chapter, so soon after 19! I apologize if this chapter seems like a filler. I'm rather distracted at the moment. **

**Song: With You In My Head by UNKLE .com/watch?v=K_mCMrOhhqc (from the Eclipse soundtrack, if anyone notices. :) I think it applies to this story-maybe not necessarily this chapter. But it's just mood music, really.)**

**Enjoy!**

20. Mulder Intuition?

"Scully," Mulder said, as they hustled down the hallway of the hotel, "why don't we just check the tape from earlier this night, rather than wait for the intruders to come back tomorrow?"

"That's my plan," answered Scully. "We'll check the tapes for this night and tomorrow night, to see if this break-in was isolated or a sequence. It could be that whoever is breaking in hasn't found what he's-what they're-looking for."

"Are you so sure they're looking for anything?" Mulder passed her to open his door with his card key, leaving her standing in consternation.

"Why else would they be repeatedly entering my room in the dead of night? To give the bathroom a scrub before I get up to brush my teeth?"

The handle of the door slid down with a _chunk_. Mulder turned his enigmatic eyes on her, their expression a little unnerving. "Maybe they've already found what they want."

"At any rate," Scully continued a moment later, "we'll know who they are and what they're doing in my room as soon as we can collect that security camera tape."

"And if it's one of the Cullens? What then, Scully?"

The thought had crossed her mind, of course. Edward Cullen had been peering in at her just that afternoon, and now someone had wandered through her apartment while she slept? It seemed incriminating, to say the least. But she wouldn't give Mulder the satisfaction of knowing he was on the same track as she. "If the Cullens are involved, we'll have to bring them in, I suppose. And you'll get your wish of cornering them."

"I'll still get two wishes left, then?" Mulder winked.

Scully stared at him, calculating (not for the first time) Mulder's probability of having MPS. "Mulder, I've never seen you so ready to condemn any suspect. What has gotten into you?"

"Well, what's gotten into you, Scully? Usually you pick up on these blatantly obvious signs as quickly, if not quicker, than I do."

To postpone answering, Scully pretended to be searching for her tote bag in plain sight on the end of Mulder's bed.

"Did they threaten you?" asked Mulder, slowly, as if the idea just came to him. "When you were in the car with them?"

"All Alice Cullen talked about was shoes, Armani suits, and James Bond," Scully replied. "No mention whatsoever of vampiric tendencies harbored in her family." She pictured tiny, dainty Alice trying to utter a remotely threatening statement, such as, 'We'll be watching you,' or, 'If you keep investigating this case, _bad_ things will happen to you.' But then she remembered the girl's words when she found out about Scully's purpose for coming to Forks.

_ Do you ever get the feeling that, sometimes, there's people who don't want you to get your job done?_

_ ...Well...I think this is one of those times._

At the time, it hadn't sounded like a threat. It had caused a chill up her spine, but she'd never thought that Alice meant any menace by the phrase (although she'd never puzzled out what the girl _had_ meant by it). Maybe Mulder was right; maybe, for some unfathomable reason, she was blind to the Cullens' nefarious natures. And yet, as she told this to herself, she couldn't believe it.

Something told her the Cullens weren't the murderers of Allison Pratchett and Namoi Brooks. They might be bad people-reclusive freaks living out in the woods in their own personal cult-but Scully just couldn't associate them with these murders.

"I don't know, Mulder." Her hands deep in her tote bag, Scully shook her head and avoided Mulder's gaze. "I feel like our roles have been reversed. I have an instinctual feeling about this case. It's almost like...I know, deep in my subconscious, that the Cullens aren't the Forks killers. It's intuition."

Mulder didn't say anything for a moment. Then he simply said, "Weird."

Scully snorted and managed to hide it in a cough. "Weird? That's all you have to say? After I just made one of the biggest confessions of our partnership, a confession to having bizarre, Mulder-like intuition, all you can say is-"

"Very weird."

Scully let the tote bag's flap fall back with a floppy smack. "Very weird?"

"Yes. Bizarre, too."

"That's the last time I waste a moment of honesty on you."

"Oh, come on, Scully," said Mulder, smiling, "you know you can tell me anything." After a second he added, "Especially if it's about misdemeanors you committed in high school."

"As far as I know, _Mulder_, I only committed _one_ minor offense in high school, and I already told you-"

With an angry buzz, Mulder's cell phone vibrated on his hip. "This is Mulder." Scully heard the voice on the other end of the connection mutter something. Mulder's face darkened. "You have her at the station? Right. Okay. We'll be over right away. No, we have a car. Thanks, Officer."

"Another body?" Scully asked, her stomach twisting.

"No," Mulder said, as he grabbed his jacket. "She got away. She's still alive."


	21. Chapter 21 Another Victim?

**Author's Note: My apologies for the late post. I realize most of you won't get this until tomorrow. And sorry I didn't upload sooner, but I had muscles and bones to memorize! On the bright side, just think how well I'll be able to write a Scully POV once I'm finished with my Anatomy and Physiology classes! I can't wait!**

** Remember the action I said was coming soon? Only a few more chapters, I promise. And the next chapter will be one I'll particularly love to write. Just a minor clue for you, there...**

**Song: O Death by Jen Titus. .com/watch?v=dBFOrek0HcM (I haven't Supernatural myself, but this song was featured in that show. It seems to fit very well into this story.)**

**Enjoy!**

21. Another Victim?

"What's your name?" asked Mulder, taking a seat across from the young girl sitting in the Forks police station's only questioning room.

"Angela. Angela Webber." Angela, a tall high school girl with long brown hair and nervous brown eyes, fidgeted in her seat, tugging at her orange hoodie with slender fingers.

"All right, Angela," Mulder smiled reassuringly, "my name's Agent Fox Mulder. I'm with the FBI. I just want to ask you a few quick questions, and then we'll let you go home, okay?"

"Sounds good," Angela said, smiling nervously. "I've been up all night, Mr. Mulder. Sorry if I seem really stupid."

"That's fine. I understand. Now, could you tell me what you were doing at the school tonight?"

"Uh, my teacher, Miss Groves, wanted help with moving her stuff. She's transferring to another school," Angela explained. "I offered to help, but tonight was the only night I could come, so she agreed to meet me there at about seven forty-five."

"You were the only two at the school, correct?"

"Well..." Angela chewed her lip thoughtfully. "The janitor was there for a while. I think he left around eight thirty. And Mr. Johannson, the music teacher, he was there, but he was leaving just when I pulled up."

"All right." As Mulder bent to scribble a note in his legal pad, Scully slipped quietly into the room. She'd been delayed slightly at the door when the same officer she'd talked to about the Cullens passed her on his way out; she figured it would be impolite not to say anything to him. He had tried to warn her about the vampires, after all, Scully thought dryly. It was the least she could do.

With a brief glance in Scully's direction, Mulder nodded at the girl. "Go on. I'll stop you when I have a question."

"Okay." Although she looked sideways at Scully, Angela didn't comment on her sudden appearance. "Um, Miss Groves was already inside loading up stuff when I got there. We still needed to pack some boxes, but she said not to worry about those. She said she'd back come tomorrow-well, today-to pick them up. So I helped her carry the rest of the boxes to her truck."

"And all this time, the two of you were alone at the school."

"Yes, from what I know. I didn't see anybody until I got ready to leave."

"And that was-?"

Shrugging uneasily, Angela pulled on the sleeve of her hoodie. Scully noticed that the graphic designs on the sweater's front resembled the form of a phoenix. For some odd reason, it reminded her of Edward Cullen's unruly copper hair.

"I would say I started walking to the parking lot around ten o'clock," Angela said, "but I didn't check my cell phone. I knew it was late." At Mulder's expectant look, she continued. "Miss Groves was still inside with the last box-she told me to go on home. I asked her if she wanted me to walk with her to her car, but she said she'd be all right. Miss Groves is a women's libber," the girl interjected, with a timid smile.

Mulder gave a knowing smile in return. "The Elizabeth Cady Stanton type, eh?"

Angela giggled once quietly. Scully felt acutely pained by the girl's shyness. She had never been shy, but her best friend Mary in middle school had been just like Angela: withdrawn and afraid to show personality. "Just about. Anyway, I walked to the parking lot, and...this...guy...he came out of nowhere." An unconscious shudder rippled through Angela's shoulders. "It was very...disturbing. One minute I was completely alone in the parking lot, and the next, he was walking up behind me. I was scared. He didn't talk to me, so I knew he was up to no good."

"Could you try to give me a description of him, Angela?" Mulder asked, poised on the edge of his chair. Scully tried to get his attention to tell him to sit back and stop intimidating the girl, but he didn't give her the opportunity. He smelled blood.

Unfortunately, so did Scully.

"I can't tell you much," Angela said. "I already gave Chief Swan a description. Do you want me to repeat that one?"

"Just tell me what you can remember about him. I'll prompt you if I have to."

Angela searched the air as if to recreate her stalker's image from its molecules. "He was tall, I do know that. He had on black jeans and a hoodie. That's why I don't know what his face looked like, he was wearing a hood. That was what bothered me the most about him: I couldn't see his face. But..." she frowned, and Scully sensed her uncertainty about finishing her sentence. "He was...pale. Heroine-pale." The girl blushed at using such a streetwise term. "Very pale," she amended. "Like a drug addict."

Mulder didn't waver in his neutral expression, but Scully could literally see waves of smugness emanating from him. She coughed defiantly.

Angela was still talking. "And he had one hand in his pocket. I know it's silly, but I was really afraid he had a gun." And to a girl who had lived in a town as small as Forks her whole life, a man carrying a gun at night through a school parking lot _would_ sound preposterous, Scully reasoned.

"Angela, don't take this wrong," Mulder said, "but when you agreed to meet Miss Groves so late at night, weren't you a little apprehensive? Two women have been murdered in your town this week."

"I was nervous, of course," Angela said, her innocent eyes honest, "but I just didn't think a murderer would hang around a school. No one comes there at night."

True. The girl did have a fair amount of common sense. But Scully felt cold as she pictured the scene: Angela, walking with hunched shoulders and shrinking fear, and a tall, deathly-pale man behind her, his face black inside his jacket. And before she knew it, the faceless stalker turned into the wiry figure of Jasper Hale. Scully slammed down on her imagination when her Stalker-Jasper reached into his pocket, his predatory eyes on Angela.

This was getting ridiculous!

"So you weren't able to see any of the man's face," Mulder reaffirmed.

"No..." Again, Angela hesitated. "I think I saw part of his hair, though I'm not sure. It looked...blonde. It's hard to tell in the parking lot's light."

Blonde and pale, and not just pale, but heroine-pale. Unnaturally pale. Mulder was undoubtedly having a private hey-day inside his cranial cavity. "Did he try to approach you?" Scully's partner asked, carving a line of notes into his pad with feverish fervor.

"Not directly, no. I'm not even sure he was going to hurt me, Agent Mulder. I just got very bad feelings from him, like he wanted to hurt me." Shaking her head, Angela wound a strand of hair around her finger, restless. "Can I please go home, now? I've been here all night. My parents must be really worried."

"Chief Swan is going to take you home in just a minute, Angela, I promise. I just want you to describe for me exactly what you saw this man do."

Slumping against her chair, Angela nodded. "Thank you. Um, what he did...he walked just behind me so I had to turn around to look at him. He didn't care if the light was on him since he had his hood on. I was almost to my car when he started walking faster." Closing the distance, Scully thought. "I sped up, too. By that time he was really scaring me. I thought if I made it to my car and turned the light on he'd leave me alone." The girl stopped for a second, collecting her thoughts. "It was weird, though. I still had to pass a few parking spaces to get to my car, but the man stopped walking. All of a sudden, like he just realized he was getting closer to me. And then he just stood there while I got in my car and drove away."

"He was still there when you left the parking lot?"

"Yes. He was just standing there. I think..." Angela pursed her lips. "I think, maybe, something stopped him. I never saw anything, but maybe there was someone around at the school. Serial killers don't kill people when there's a witness, right?"

"This killer may not be serial," Scully said. "We haven't reached a conclusion yet."

Angela looked at her, shy again. "Sorry. I won't tell anyone I said that."

"And we don't know that this man is the murderer of those two women, either," Scully added, shooting Mulder a look that clearly said, _And don't you insinuate otherwise_.

"Something stopped him..." Mulder closed his legal pad and smiled at the tired high school girl. "Thank you, Angela. You've been very cooperative, and I appreciate it. Sometimes we get a lot of difficult people in these cases."

"Your welcome. Now can I go home?" Angela's expression was desperate. "Please?"

"I'll call the chief and he'll take you home."

"Thank you."

Scully preceded Angela and Mulder out the door of the questioning room and headed toward the desk at the front of the main room. She wanted to look at Chief Swan's notes on this incident to see if his observations could provide any links to the Forks killer. To Mulder, she knew, the description of the stalker was too coincidental to be written off. She wasn't so sure, but she couldn't deny the similarity between Angela's portrayal of the man and the physical description of two of the Cullens; Carlisle or Jasper could fit under the "tall, blonde, and pale" category.

And yet, if one of the Cullens was the stalker _and _the killer, snatching a girl from a high school parking lot didn't line up with the other forms of attack used on the other women. One victim had been passing through from out of town, one coming to visit from a neighboring Indian reservation. Both would go unnoticed for days before anyone thought to look for them. But Angela would have been missed immediately; her teacher, for one, would have realized she never made it to her car, and her parents would have called the police the minute they knew she was missing. Why select a resident of Forks as the next victim when the other two were cleverly picked because of their outsider status?

Or maybe it was all random, and the killer happened to stumble on two outsiders from sheer luck, Scully reasoned. After all, the only way the killer would have known Allison Pratchett and Namoi Brooks were from out of town was-

If he was a resident of Forks. And if he had decently easy access to young women's personal records. And if _he saw most of the women in town through his profession_.

"No."

"You all right, Scully?" Mulder appeared at her elbow, a cup of coffee in hand.

"Yes, I'm fine," Scully answered, a bit snappishly. Then she took a breath, instantly remorseful. "Sorry, Mulder. I'm just running on a lack of sleep."

"I understand, Scully, believe me. You weren't the one sitting against a door all night."

"That was entirely your decision, Mulder."

"Yes, it was, and I would do it again. I probably will, somewhere down the line." With a wan smile, Mulder patted her shoulder and took a sip of coffee. "I've got to hunt down Chief Swan and make sure he takes Angela home. Then we can get out of here and go discuss the case-or you can get some rest, whichever you prefer."

"All right, Mulder." Scully smiled back at him. She knew he was torturing himself by offering her a chance to rest before discussion. It made her aware of how concerned Mulder was for her well-being.

"I'll be back in a minute," Mulder said, then paced off to find the chief.

The minute her partner left, the oppressive revelation returned to her mind. Scully was now forced to examine more closely one of the suspects she wanted very badly to dismiss as innocent. Despite what her "gut feeling" was telling her, she needed to fall back on the reliable method of tackling the case scientifically. She would start from the top suspect and work her way down. She needed to forget her bout of Mulder intuition. She now had a thread of logic that connected one possible suspect to the two killings in Forks, and that's where she had to begin.

Mulder was not going to like it-

The front door of the police station crashed open with a wild swing, and Isabella Swan rushed in, stumbling over the threshold in her walking cast. As her foot passed over the edge of the linoleum floor, the chief's daughter pitched forward, her hands held out to catch her body. Scully ran forward and saved the girl from a face-plant into the aged vinyl. She noticed how severely the girl was shaking. "Bella?" she asked in disbelief. "What are you doing here?"

Bella looked as if she was going to answer, but then her body heaved and she vomited onto the linoleum. Scully grabbed the girl's hair to keep it out of the mess and patted her anxiously on the back. What was wrong with Chief Swan's child? And if she was sick, why did she come to the station at three o'clock in the morning? "Bella?"

"It's in our back yard," Bella gasped, tears now mixed with the vomit on her face. Her eyes were wide and dilated, her face waxen. "I went to get my book and I saw it-she wasn't moving-I made sure-"

Scully smoothed Bella's hair back, hoping to quiet her. "Shhh, Bella, it's all right. I think you've been in shock." She kept her voice calm, but internally, her insides were twisting. There was only one thing that would send a girl into this level of shock.

Bella shook her head jerkily, clutching her stomach. "It's not all right! There's a-a-body in my back yard!"


	22. Chapter 22 Challenged

**Author's Note: Well, this is was a very thrilling chapter to write! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! And the good news is there's another really exciting one coming after this!**

**Song: Lacrimosa, from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Requiem. .com/watch?v=JE2muDZksP4 It sets the mood, and I thought it had a nice X-Files/Twilight feel. Besides, a little classical music never hurt anybody!**

**Enjoy! **

22. Challenged

The blonde one was finally angry.

He had expected this reaction much sooner, and he had received it many times from the redhead. But the blonde one was much more hard to provoke, much too old for frustration to make him snarl.

The blonde one was snarling now, though. He had succeeded in bringing the challenge directly to the leader. It had taken much blood, but he had done it.

The ugly female's shell was lying in the grass outside the human girl's house, her body drained and stained by its own ichor. He had taken special care to break as many bones as possible; the blonde one would count them all, he knew, and each break would make him snarl. And he wanted the blonde one angry. If he wasn't angry, he was too quick, too clever.

Golden and eery, the blonde one's eyes searched the woods for the one who had drained the woman, for he knew he was still around, watching him. He stayed still, but he knew the blonde one would see him. Those strange eyes found him, and they burned yellow fire. But the blonde one did not move from his place in the grass by the dead female; he was not angry enough to attack, not yet. There would have to be more done to make him that angry. And he wanted the blonde one angry.

Not the like the redhead, who was easily angered.

_Speak of the devil_, an old something-a phrase-echoed in his mind as the redhead appeared in the doorway of the house. He smiled at the redhead's wrath: wide black eyes, lips pulled back high over his teeth. What he knew the redhead would do. "How did this happen?" The redhead snarled, speaking roughly to his leader.

The blonde one did not take his eyes off him, watching him crouch in the trees. "I don't know, Edward."

"We thought he was going to the hotel!"

"I know."

"You were here, you were supposed to be watching her! Keeping her safe-"

"She is safe, Edward." The blonde one was still watching him, but the redhead did not notice. "You know I would never let him harm her. She's at the police station. I followed her the whole way."

The redhead slammed the door of the house. "He should _never_ have gotten this close, Carlisle!"

"I was in her room, inches away. He would never have touched her."

"But you came down here as soon as you heard the noise, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Then _how_ did he come this close at all? We should have seen this! Alice-"

"Already has her hands full," the blonde one said, his voice more even than was pleasant.

Safe in the trees, he frowned; he wanted the leader angry.

But of course the redhead was angry. "I don't care! That FBI agent isn't worth Bella's life!"

The blonde one did not answer, but his eyes were watching.

The redhead saw the direction the blonde one's eyes traveled. He took a step forward, but the blonde one put out a hand, stopping him. The redhead snarled fiercely at his leader. "I can't let this go!"

"I'm not going to, either," the blonde one answered, his hand still on the redhead's wrist.

He smiled in triumph. Now, now the blonde one would rise.

"But we're going to play this game intelligently, Edward." The leader took his eyes from the trees and stared at the redhead, commanding. "And that's what this is to him: a game. You know that as well as I do. And the more we play into his moves, the more he wins."

The redhead laughed without a smile. "Do you think I care?"

"This is not just about us." The blonde one was steely, his eyes no longer burning with fire but with ice. "If we're going to stop him, we will not play into his hands. I need you on my side, Edward, if we're going to defeat him."

Deep in the trees, he smiled again, almost with a laugh.

He would wait for the blonde one to slip, and then he would take him out. Then, when the leader was down, he would steal his prize.

And then they would all be angry.


	23. Chapter 23 Scalpel?

**Author's Note: So...I am not going to offer any of my (rather lame) excuses for why this chapter is SO STINKING LATE. In my defense, I am now in Anatomy and Physiology II (apparent by my new use of medical terminology), a class which requires lots of time and energy. I'm also in Ethics. Yes. That's all you need to know. **

** About this chapter: I would like to make a statement. I have never performed or witnessed an official autopsy, therefore I am no expert. Do not think I have any idea what I'm talking about, even if it sounds official. Although I guarantee you, that terminology is legit! Also, I mean no disrespect whatsoever to anyone who has had a friend or relative undergo an autopsy. If you have, I offer my most sincere condolences. **

**That said, the song for this chapter! **

**Strange Town by Neon Horse: .com/watch?v=SgbkAAy7zSs This song embodies Scully's experiences in Forks. **

**Enjoy! Wait for the next chapter! It's coming up!**

23. Scalpel?

Scully still wasn't sure how it had happened.

As she stood washing her hands, some part of her brain counting out the minutes, the rest of her mind was furiously backtracking, rewinding the previous events like a roll of film. Oddly enough, she was still coming up blank.

Just how exactly had she wound up performing an autopsy _with Carlisle Cullen? _The man she had just sworn to hold as her prime suspect_ for serial murders?_ The water was cold as it poured over her already-clean hands, but Scully scrubbed away, slapping on more soap as she tried to gather her thoughts.

It had all happened at the hospital, of course. Chief Swan had ordered the body to be brought there immediately despite the late hour. Scully didn't blame him; who would want a body lying in their backyard? Then she had volunteered to perform the autopsy more out of morbid curiosity than altruism. Scully wanted to be able to be the first one to analyze the remains of the Forks Killer's latest victim. Optimistically-unrealistically-she hoped the autopsy results would point her closer to the right suspect.

Suspects. One of which was at the sink beside hers, finishing his own surgical scrub. Scully stole a glance at Dr. Cullen out of the corner of her eye, watching him roll his shirt sleeves up and slap on a pair of disposable gloves. She swallowed at the freakish perfection of the man.

It just wasn't right for a male to be _that_ gorgeous.

When she had arrived from the police station with Bella Swan in tow, Scully had carefully explained to Chief Swan how he should take care of his daughter until she recovered from her shock. And somehow, while she had been instructing him, the police chief had mentioned the fact that there were few doctors on call at the hospital who were qualified to lead an autopsy on the body. "Would you consider..." Chief Swan had stuttered. "I mean, I don't want to, uh, impose or anything on your investigation, I know you need sleep-"

"That's fine, Chief," Scully had said, relieved she didn't have to suggest anything herself. "I'll head the autopsy. But I might need an assistant or two, since I'm unfamiliar with your facilities." _Or lack thereof_, she had wanted to add.

"Oh, right. Well, there's a couple doctors here that might agree to that. I'll go ask around. One second."

In the end, Chief Swan had managed to gather three doctors into the unused waiting room Scully and Bella sat in: all three young, male, attractive, and totally inappropriate for the situation. Since the pickings were slim to begin with, Scully had figured she should just clean out until she was left with one willing assistant. So she'd asked each doctor if they really wanted to see the results of a violent killing.

The first, a short, dark-haired ER worker, had gracefully bowed out with the plea that he had just finished his residency and felt unqualified for a murder autopsy. The second, another physician fresh out of med school, said he'd been up all night covering another surgeon's shift. Scully had dismissed him with an understanding smile. That had left the last, a man who was nervous just looking at an FBI agent. Scully had sighed and said, "That's all right, Doctor, I can manage on my own." And he'd escaped without further deliberation.

Chief Swan had hemmed and hawed in embarassment. "Well, that went over well."

"It's all right. I've performed several autopsies alone. Actually, most of the autopsies I performed were-"

"BELLA!"

Scully and Chief Swan had both jumped as what looked to be half the Cullen family poured into the empty waiting room. There was Alice, Jasper, Edward, and a boy with a football player's girth who could only be Emmett, Edward's older brother. All four of them had rushed to form a huddle around Bella's chair, Alice already spewing out her worry for her friend's safety. As Scully had blinked in consternation at them, the fifth Cullen had come into the room. And Chief Swan's throat had been cleared yet again.

"Is Bella all right, Charlie?" Carlisle Cullen had asked.

"She's in shock," Scully had said automatically.

Carlisle nodded sympathetically, his eyes on the huddle in the corner. "Of course."

"Carlisle," Chief Swan had said, "do you know of anyone who could help Agent Scully with the autopsy of the new body?"

Carlisle had looked up from his surveillance of his adopted children. "Certainly. What about Dr. Adams?"

"Already tried him, sorry."

"Dr. Sandler?"

"He's due in surgery in a couple hours."

Dr. Cullen had thought for a moment as Scully had stared at him. "My next shift starts at nine," he'd said. "I'd be happy to volunteer."

So Scully finally tamped down on where she'd lost connection with time. It had been after the Cullens had rushed Bella in the waiting room. How wonderful.

Now what was she going to do?

Dr. Cullen was studying the body as Scully pulled on her own gloves, his removed expression familiar to a veteran FBI doctor. Since he couldn't be much older than herself, Scully wondered how many autopsies Carlisle had performed. Then she dropped that line of thought as the memory of her dream rose up in her mind. She refused to have the image of a deranged Dr. Cullen hanging over her when she was going to spend the next couple hours with him. Stuck in the bottom of the Forks hospital, alone, with only some scalpels and a dead body...

Scully hit the button on her recorder with more force than was necessary. As the machine crackled to life, she and Carlisle readied the instruments-the body had already been prepped by another hospital worker, so the only thing left to do was begin the examination. All this time, neither doctor had said a word. _She needed to focus on the autopsy. She had to pull it together_. "This is Agent Dana Scully, performing an autopsy at-" she checked the clock on the wall, "five-oh-seven A.M.. Assistant Physician: Dr. Carlisle Cullen of Forks Hospital. The subject is Lily Maris, 35, a caucasian female. Height: five foot nine inches. Weight: one hundred forty-two pounds."

It took Scully and Dr. Cullen the better part of thirty minutes to document Maris's clothing, which had been deeply stained and torn by her killer. Another fifty-five minutes was spent cataloguing the superficial and cutaneous wounds. Several times Scully saw Dr. Cullen pause over one of the teeth marks on the woman's arms and neck, but she didn't comment. She wondered if he was digging his own grave by lingering on those wounds; or if, perhaps, he'd never had to help with a violent homicide autopsy and was shocked by what he saw.

She thought that maybe she should sound out what was bothering him. "Dr. Cullen, would you see if those teeth marks and the surrounding contusions are signs of a fractured ulna?"

Agreeing with a nod, Carlisle wasn't reticent with his palpation of the indicated arm. "I would guess that there's a comminuted fracture on the distal epiphysis of the left ulna, and one on the distal portion of the left humeral diaphysis," he reported in an almost mechanical voice. "But whether or not that's the result of the teeth marks, I'm not sure."

"Thank you," Scully said, noticing the tense set of her assistant's shoulders. Resolving to send the DNA samples she had collected from Brooks and Maris off to Seattle within the next two days, Scully took up her scalpel and began the Y incision.

Aside from the deep injuries that resulted from the external damage done to the body, Scully couldn't find any severe abnormalities on Maris's internal organs. She did note a strange, tiny puncture that had penetrated through the skin of the leg and into the femoral artery. She was careful to collect samples from around the puncture for investigation; if Maris had been injected with a sedative, _correctly_ injected, she wanted to know. She also put the samples in her container herself, too distrustful of Carlisle to give him the task. Instead she asked him to remove the internal organs for closer examination separate from the body cavities. If he tried to tamper with those, she would know.

Of course, Scully knew how Maris had died: her neck had been broken with reckless brutality, and her eyes were wide open, implying that she had realized what was happening as she died. That much had been apparent as soon as she had seen the body. From the markings around the break, she knew a man had strangled her with his bare hands, but there were no fingerprints to be found. The carelessness of the killing made Scully's stomach turn. In all her time with the FBI, she had only seen a few cases where a woman had been murdered and then mutilated. And then to leave the desecrated body in the chief of police's-and also Bella Swan's-back yard...

Those signs spoke of a deliberate killing to provoke the authorities. To _provoke_ someone, at least.

"There are few anomalies around the internal organs," Scully reported without much interest, her mind throwing itself back to her nightmares without her permission. Putting all thoughts of the dreams far from her, she bent to take a closer look at the puncture. "There seems to have been an injection from a sizable needle on the left leg, on the quadriceps femoris. I've collected samples from the surrounding tissues for further study."

"Dr. Scully," Dr. Cullen interrupted out of nowhere, still working at the removed organs, "are you planning to send those samples to the FBI?"

Scully looked up, startled at the break in her partner's silence. "No, I was going to send them to a crime lab in Seattle. They have a fully-equipped facility." Returning to her examination, she added, for conversation's sake, "I might get one of the pathologists here to make a cursory review, if they're available."

"That would be a good idea," Carlisle said, "but our last pathologist just moved to Portland."

"Oh, really?" Scully paused in her examination. Should she check the brain? It was standard procedure, but she already knew what had killed the woman. "Who's been filling in for him?" _They really only had one pathologist?_

"No one, we've had to send everything to Seattle."

"What about during surgery?"

"Well, then I fill in for him."

_It figured_. "That's...talented of you."

Dr. Cullen shook his head, never taking his eyes from the tissues in front of him. "It makes me a nervous wreck, honestly."

Scully nodded, the bone saw in her hand. The saw wasn't a quality instrument, but it was acceptable. Besides, Scully thought cynically, it wasn't like Maris had died of brain trauma, anyway. She wouldn't really be damaging vital evidence. Then it hit her: she had been chatting with her murder suspect. She had been making conversation with him like she would with any fellow doctor. She was even sympathizing with him!

"You know," Carlisle continued after a moment, "a pathologist was supposed to come down from Harborview in Seattle." Scully felt his eyes on her as she hovered over the skull. Although it was weak of her, she couldn't meet his eyes. "He never did make it here, though. Nobody knows where he went."

In a flash, images came rushing into Scully's mind as if they had been unrolled like a banner. The pieces, scattered and disconnected, all fell into place with the elegance of a three-dimensional puzzle. Mouth open, she nearly dropped the saw as hard, solid understanding washed over her. "Oh. My-"

A continuous rap on the door to the basement room brought Scully back to the autopsy. Before she could set down the saw, Dr. Cullen had crossed the room and peered through the window in the door, opening it with a confused frown. "Alice?"

"Carlisle, I need to talk to Dana right now! It's urgent, and, no, it can't wait!" Alice Cullen said, all in one breath.

When Scully looked up, she was met with the sight of the petite teenager, dressed like a model and totally inappropriate for an autopsy, craning her neck to see past her adopted father.

"Alice, you can't come in here," Carlisle said.

"Then she-" Alice pointed a demanding finger at Scully, "has to come out. She can do her little five minute hand sanitization again. I _have_ to talk to her, Carlisle!"

The two exchanged a peculiar glance. "All right," Carlisle said, and he moved out of the way while Alice gestured to Scully like a woman possessed.

"Hurry up, Dana," Alice said, actually dancing on the spot. Scully found it rather weird that a girl like Alice was not squeamish at the sight of a disemboweled, skull-less body. The Cullen family's strangeness knew no bounds.

"I'll be right back," Scully told Dr. Cullen.

"Of course you will," said Alice impatiently, seizing her by the hand and slamming the basement door with some force. "Come over here." The girl ignored Scully's inquiring nosie and pulled her several feet down the hallway. "Now, Dana, I know you think we're a little odd." _You got that right_, Scully wanted to say. "But I'm telling you now-no, I'm warning you-when you have to go in a few minutes, take Carlisle with you."

"What?" Scully had barely processed her revelation about the case, and now Alice was dumping more information on her.

"It will make sense in good time," Alice said. "But do _not_ discount what I'm telling you."

"Alice-why should I-"

"I just know these things," the girl said, her amber eyes pleading. "Now, please, Dana, listen to me: _when you have to go, take Carlisle with you_."

If Alice thought "I know these things" was sufficient incentive, she was very wrong. "Look, I'm not just going to-"

"Alice?" A boy's voice echoed down the hallway.

"I have to go," Alice whispered. "Goodbye, Dana."

"Now, wait just a-Alice!"

But she was gone, leaving Sculy standing, mystified, in the middle of the hallway, alone with her premonitions.


	24. Chapter 24 Can You Hear Me Now?

**Author' Note: A singularly short chapter with a singularly abrupt plot revealing! Everybody's favorite kind, right? :)**

**I just thought I should let everyone know that I intend to finish this story quite soon. I actually wrote most of the final chapters over Christmas break, but I have yet to connect all the dots. So that's why it's taking me so long to finish. But the end is near! (I've been wanting to say that for years)**

**Song for this chapter: Through the Storm by Dax Johnson .com/watch?v=l9u42B9WOuM (because Dax Johnson is truly awesome and his music is great for the X-Files)**

**Enjoy!**

24. Stalker?

Scully realized that Dr. Cullen would find it rather strange if she was gone for longer than a couple minutes, but she took advantage of the privacy of the hallway to pull out her cell phone. Mulder had to be party to her revelation; this was the first time in the history of their partnership that she had solved a case purely by herself. It was fortunate that Mulder wasn't the type of partner who would turn jealous and refuse to heed her instructions.

Opening up the contacts list, Scully hit Mulder's name and began to text:

_Mulder-just had inspir. _

_Go to hotel, check vid. feeds._

_Match feeds with missing_

_pathologist in Seattle._

She sent it with an impatient tap and stuffed her phone back down her pocket. Then she turned and reentered the basement. "Sorry about that, Doctor," she said, going back to the sink to wash her hands.

"Not at all," answered Carlisle, looking up from the body. "I should be sorry, really. Alice can be a bit...overenthusiastic at times."

"Oh, it was nothing." Scully gave him her polite, colleague smile and went back to work. Internally, her brain was shooting through thoughts at a speed worthy of a fighter jet. Between deciphering Alice's cryptic message and anticipating Mulder's reaction to her text, she didn't have much time for the autopsy.

"If it's not too personal," Carlisle said, breaking the silence, "what exactly did Alice want?"

It was amazing how one single thought had altered her feelings toward Carlisle so completely. Scully felt no unease whatsoever around the doctor now-at least not the fear-for-her-life kind. She saw no reason to withhold information from Dr. Cullen. But then she remembered that Alice had taken her out of the room to give her warning. That must have been for some reason, even if Scully didn't know what it might be. She settled for hedging. "To tell you the truth, I didn't really understand it myself. Is she always so mysterious?"

"Apparently, it's part of her charm," said Carlisle.

Scully laughed, and then jolted as if she'd been electrocuted as her phone vibrated in her pocket. "Excuse me," she muttered, yanking it into her hand.

The text was short, sweet, and to the point:

_Left police station. _

_Am at hotel. Going_

_to secure feeds. _

_What is going on?_

"It's my partner," Scully explained, as she began to text back:

_Will explain when_

_autopsy is done._

_Check feeds but_

_DON'T forget_

_the pathologist._

Dr. Cullen didn't inquire into her furious texting, for which Scully was grateful. He had tipped her off to the truth of the case, really, but she couldn't tell him her conclusions until everything was said and done. And she may have solved the case, but it was far from over. For one thing, she still had to convince Mulder that the Cullens were innocent-as far as she knew-so they could start on the right track.

The rest of the autopsy passed without further incident, excluding a run-in with a scalpel that broke and cut the side of Scully's hand quite spectacularly. Carlisle had cheerfully cleaned her up (destroying Mulder's vampire theory, again), tossed the offending scaplel in the trash, and they had both resumed work.

As Scully finished her examination of the strangle wound on Maris's neck, she felt her phone vibrate against the autopsy table. Now a bit annoyed at the interruption, she tugged her gloves off and fished the phone out.

The text was as brief as it was shocking. It threw Scully for a loop.

_Checked the feeds._

_Sam Uley was in_

_your room last night._

_I will kill him. _

_Personally._


	25. Chapter 25 Mulder

**Author's Note: Yes! Finally, my friends! I have updated! And finally, a Mulder POV!**

**So sorry for the delay, but...you know how it goes. As Mulder might say, "I had places to run to, people to pull a gun on, and problems to cause." :)**

**By the Way; on a side note, I just watched the X-Files episode "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'", and it was pure genius. I pretty much died laughing. Serious hyperventilation.**

**Song...: .com/watch?v=1MoTv7mIp8M Get On Your Boots by U2 (weird for the chapter, but applicable to Mulder. That's all that matters.)**

**Enjoy!**

25. Mulder

What.

The.

Devil?

Mulder stared at the wideo feeds, running the tape backwards to glower yet again at the hulking form of Sam Uley as he slouched around Scully's room. If Sam was any indication, every kid on LaPush reservation had abnormal amounts of growth hormone coursing through their bodies. Seeing that giant form standing over Scully, who looked even more tiny in her sleep, was enough to start up a tick in Mulder's eye.

What he couldn't figure out was how the kid had gotten in. Well, no, that wasn't all he didn't know; why he was in Scully's room was another fact he had yet to decode. He rewound the tape again, slowing down at the point where Sam first appeared in the feeds. Once he had slowed it down to five frames per second, Mulder could finally see where Uley had entered the room.

Mulder blinked and replayed the section again. Surely no one could move that fast. No one human, at least. From the looks of the tape-and as far as Mulder knew, it had been in its camera, untouched-Sam walked to the window, forced it open, and swung in all in a matter of seconds. And he hadn't generated enough noise to wake Mulder or Scully.

Either the kid was a skilled cat burglar, or something else was going on that Mulder didn't know about.

But unnatural breaking and entering aside..._why_ was Uley in Scully's room? And why was he always facing the same window through which he came? It was like he couldn't let himself relax enough to search the apartment, steal Scully's wallet, hurt Scully herself...so why was he there?

Maybe it was a game the LaPush kids played, Mulder thought wryly. A let's-break-into-a-federal-agent's-hotel-room game. Like cops and robbers, only weirder with a lot more danger and a sense of adventure thrown in. He hit the replay button, feeling like he was stuck in an old movie theatre whose projector had broken.

Wait. Sitting up straighter, Mulder's index finger stabbed the button with gusto this time, his eyes glued to the small security tv screen. There was a spot of some kind visible through the window in the tape; even as he watched, it got larger on the screen as it got closer to the window. And as it got closer, Sam Uley leaned further over Scully, his face clearly trained on whatever was coming toward him and Mulder's partner.

Mulder squinted, straining his eyes to make out the shape of the spot. It was definitely a person-a man, from the look of the outline. Maybe six feet tall, from its height in the window frame. The man's face was hard to make out out from the bad quality of the video feed, but he was distinctly caucasian. From the way his hair seemed to fade into his skin color, Mulder guessed the man was blonde, too.

It wasn't inherently apparent to Mulder what the man was doing at the hotel room window other than staring back at Sam Uley. Sam looked as if he was hunched over Scully's bed almost like he was-

_Protecting her_, Mulder thought, as a quote from one of the chapters from _The Ancient Legends of Olympic Indians _popped magically into his brain: "Select men of the Quileute tribe have believed it their duty for many generations to protect their people against supernatural forces by assuming spiritual shapes themselves, the most common 'spirit form' being a wolf."

He just had to know who that man was in front of the window. Scully had her own ideas, judging by that text, and Mulder had his. He rewound the tape and put his face as close to the screen as he could with his eyes still focused.

It was like Scully had said about Edward Cullen-there was no mistaking that eerily pale skin. And the man was blonde, too, only it wasn't a man at all. It was most definitely a woman, her body and face now strikingly feminine in detail. Mulder noticed she was just wearing a man's coat, and her hair was pulled back behind her head. It was hard to tell how old she might be because of the grainy quality, but Mulder was sure she had to be another Cullen.

As the seconds scrolled by on the screen, Uley and the woman faced off, their postures defensive. The woman looked like a cat with its fur on end, her shoulders hitched up higher than normal. Uley was staring without moving at her. Finally, with a strange, jerky movement, the woman wrenched away from the window and disappeared in a heartbeat.

The Cullens outside the window, Sam Uley inside. Mulder knew this wasn't a coincidence. The words _mortal enemies _accompanied by some old drawings from his airport book swam around his mind. The Cullens and the Quileutes weren't happy with each other, Mulder could tell that much. And apparently, the quarrel involved Scully.

He was getting to the bottom of this today, if he had to sit outside every house in the reservation until someone let him in. Or he could just break down the door. But that seemed a little rude. Maybe he would dress up as an encyclopeida salesman; he was bound to receive more hospitality in that disguise than announcing himself as an FBI agent.

He sent a quick message to Scully:

_No one else on feeds but _

_Uley and a Cullen._

_I'm going 2 the _

_reservation ASAP. _

_Tell me if you have _

_any other updates._

It was less than a minute before Scully's reply vibrated through his phone:

_Hey stay at hotel_

_I am coming over to_

_see feeds myself the_

_autopsy is almost done._

Right. He'd heard that one before. Mulder sighed and texted back an impatient emoticon. Scully's idea of 'almost done' translated into 'two hours' in Mulder Time. He couldn't wait for Uley to realize he'd been seen and leave town. Of course, since Mulder had no clue why the kid had broken into and remained in Scully's room, Sam was pretty safe for the moment.

Surely he could nail the kid just on breaking and entering alone. That would give Mulder time to break him down and get more information out of him, maybe find out what was going on between him and the Cullens. It was clear to Mulder now that the grudge was one that stretched to every member of the Cullen family; how far it extended into Quileute territory was another question.

"I am missing something," muttered Mulder, rewinding the tape again. "It's probably right here, in this little roll of polarized film..."

_Vrrrrrup! _The vibration made Mulder jump and land painfully back onto the chair. Gritting his teeth, he read Scully's next message:

_We are nearly done. _

_Change of plans, Mulder:_

_I am going to Chief _

_Swan's house to look_

_4 more evidence. _

_Will review feeds_

_later_

_Oh, that was nice of Scully, really nice_. Here Mulder waited as patiently as possible for his lovely partner, obeying her every whim, and then she changed her plans. Mulder's righteous indignation quickly faded into chagrin and finally into amusement when he realized that this was a bit of a role reversal for their team: Scully was usually the one who had to put up with inconsistent time-tables and a flurry of plan changes.

He supposed he deserved to get a taste of his own medicine once in a while. But while he waited, he figured he might as well do something useful.

With another sigh, Mulder hit the rewind button...yet again.


	26. Chapter 26 What Is He?

**Author's Note: Continue on, dear reader. :)**

**We're getting close to the climax, and then...you know what! And what's more, I feel so happy about my upcoming break from classes, I might update a lot soon!**

**Song: The Vitamin String Quartet's Rendition of Decode by Paramore (which, as we all know, is a Twilight song) .com/watch?v=gVqvXV8gMbI **

**Enjoy!**

26. What Is He?

"Thank you again for helping me with this autopsy, Dr. Cullen."

"You're welcome." Dr. Cullen flashed a smile so white it seemed to shine. Scully looked down and tucked the cleaned instruments safely away into their covers, hoping she didn't look snow-blind.

Mulder hadn't been too pleased about her change of plan-the emoticon said it all-but now that she was centimeters from solving the case, she was confident she could find some evidence to prove her new theory. The best place to look for that evidence was at the Swan house. That was the site of the last murder, after all, so there was a good chance that the killer left some scrap of himself in the yard. It was a start, Scully figured, and better than nothing.

Scanning the basement-turned-lab for help, Scully spotted a tiny magnifying glass on one of the tables. She picked it up, noticing the scratches on its lens, wrapped it up in a pair of gloves and put it in her pocket. Like she said, better than nothing. She also found a pair of tweezers and a handkerchief; they, too, went into her pocket.

Oh, for a good evidence lab.

Carlisle made no comment during this investigation. Scully looked up and saw him finishing the last post-autopsy cleanup. "I hope I haven't made you late for your next shift," she said.

Dr. Cullen checked his own phone. "It's only eight o'clock. There's still an hour till I'm on call."

"Oh, good." Scully found herself smiling and didn't stop to examine why. "Well, I guess I'll take these samples with me and meet up with my partner. We need to corroborate theories." She actually wasn't going to meet up with Mulder for at least an hour, but Dr. Cullen didn't need to know that. She hadn't forgotten Alice's instrutcion-to _take Carlisle with her_-but she wasn't sold on the idea. Dr. Cullen might not be a homicidal maniac or a vampire (the more preposterous choice still undecided in her mind). That was great. More power to him. But she was not going to invite him into her personal space or her car with a murderer on the lose. In her opinion, that would be asking for trouble.

"I'll file the paperwork with Chief Swan and save you some trouble, if you like," Carlisle said, rolling his sleeves back down.

..._His adopted children stole her last autopsy report_. "I would appreciate that, really, but-" Scully bit her lip, "in this case autopsy reports must be filed by the presiding examiner. Just for document integrity." She prayed Dr. Cullen didn't know anything about autopsy procedure, because she had just made that regulation up on the spot.

"Of course, I understand." Maybe she had just imagined the slight raising of her autopsy assistant's eyebrow.

All of a sudden the echoing basement was a little too close for Scully's liking. "Thank you again for your help. I appreciated it," she said, gave another half-hearted smile, and turned and left through the wide doors.

"Wait, Dr. Scully!"

Turning, Scully saw Dr. Cullen emerge from the basement with her recorder in his hand. "You forgot this."

"Oh." She took it, embarassed by her absent-mindedness. "That would have been unfortunate."

"I hope the examination will give you some clues to follow," Dr. Cullen said.

Scully almost laughed; the autopsy had been the best moment of the case so far. That's when she had solved it. "Oh, it will."

With another blinding smile, Carlisle told her goodbye. They parted ways and exited the hallway outside the basement from two different directions, Scully to the parking lot and Dr. Cullen to his office. As she closed the outer door behind her Scully couldn't help but feel a little guilty, then shook herself out it. She owed absolutely nothing, nothing whatsoever, to Alice Cullen. The very idea was ridiculous.

Pulling her keys out of her pocket was a challenge with the magnifying glass smashed on top of them, but Scully managed. She climbed into the car-a police officer's car, actually-and twisted the key in the ignition.

Nothing happened.

"What?" Scully cried, and tried to start the vehicle again. She was met by a dull grinding sound. "No! Crap!" Without flinching at the thought of defacing someone else's property, she hit the dashboard in anger, then tried the ignition one more time. She groaned, resting her head against the steering wheel as the car made its death gurgle.

Now, of all times, the car decided to break down. Perhaps Scully was fated, for the rest of her career, to drive faulty vehicles. It just wasn't fair! With a sigh, Scully climbed out of the car. She had no choice but to call Mulder-

"Dr. Scully?" The pleasant voice was unmistakable. What was _he_ doing out here?

"Huh?" Scully closed the car door and faced Dr. Dexter.

Carlisle Cullen was beside his own vehicle, a Mercedes of some sort. "Is everything all right?"

"My car..." Scully shook her head. "I don't know what's wrong with it."

Frowning, Dr. Cullen gave the car a once-over. "Would you like me to take a look?"

No. No, she would not. "That's all right, Doctor, I think I'll just call Mulder. Honestly, I'm sick of these borrowed cars. They can all rust in a parking lot, for what I care." At Carlisle's puzzled expression, she had to laugh at herself. "My last car from the police station broke down, too. And I've only been here a few days."

"You're on a roll, it seems."

"I guess so. Go on, Dr. Cullen. I don't want to keep you. I'll be fine." Scully took out her phone and was about to punch in Mulder's number when she heard the grating sound of another dying car. The noise was so obnoxious it made her hit 'cancel' and find the source of the sound. She nearly snorted when she realized it was coming from Dr. Cullen's car.

Stunned, the two doctors looked up at one another. Dr. Cullen opened his door and sat there until Scully broke the silence. "Coincidence?"

"No," Carlisle said, sighing wearily. "No, probably not."

The situation was so ludicrous that Scully succumbed, leaning against the car in helpless laughter. When she sobered, she saw that Dr. Cullen had gotten out and was now examining her car. "I think this is something I can fix," he said, lifting the hood. "It just looks like a disconnected belt."

"What about your car?"

With an ironic laugh of his own, he shook his head. "My children are the car experts, Agent Scully. I'm out of my depth in anything but basic models."

"Well, we doctors can't be good at everything," Scully said. "Otherwise we'd be unbearable."

It took Dr. Cullen roughly five minutes to realign whatever was wrong with the borrowed Toyota. "Try it now," he instructed, and the car roared to life with gusto. "Well, that's one obstacle taken care of."

"Do you have a ride?" asked Scully, dreading the answer. She really shouldn't ask, but...he had fixed her car. It would be unforgivable to leave him standing in the parking lot.

"No. Esme doesn't have a car and the children are in school..." Dr. Cullen just seemed to catch Scully's drift. "But don't worry about it, Agent Scully. I was just going back to Bella's house to make sure she was all right."

Coincidence again? Like Carlisle, Scully thought not. "That's just where I was going. Pull up a chair."

Half of the ride to the Swan residence was full of the sort of talk that would bore anyone esle to death but fascinated the two doctors. Scully wouldn't consider the conversation easy. She certainly wasn't completely comfortable with Dr. Cullen yet. Her mind kept returning to the bite marks on the victims and the way her autopsy partner had lingered over them.

But she knew who it was. She did! She had solved this case and she was going to prove it, so help her!

Scully spotted the orange light on her dashboard just as her phone buzzed. She tapped its screen and pulled it out, setting it on the dashboard. "Uh, Dr. Cullen? What do you think that light means?"

"It's a low coolant light," Carlisle answered after a moment. "I don't think you have to worry about it."

That brought on a wry smile. "Well, I wouldn't, either, except my luck ran out on cars this week. Maybe we should stop and check."

"If you like."

For the first time since the ride began, Scully noticed what had been bugging her about Dr. Cullen's position in the car. "Dr. Cullen, don't you think you should put on your seat belt?"

If Scully's passenger was going to reply, she never found out.

The light on her dashboard and Dr. Cullen's seat belt had distracted her long enough for her not to see the large fallen tree sticking out into the road. With a bolt of adrenaline like an electric shock coursing down her spine, Scully knew she didn't have time to stop. What's more, she was going too fast, over the speed limit. Even though her foot jumped to the brake, she knew she would be too late.

There was a horrible bump-crunching sound, Scully was thrown forward against the steering wheel, and a shattering sound deafened her right ear. A second later she gasped in horror; Carlisle Cullen had gone flying through her windshield. When he hit the ground at over fifty miles an hour, she just knew he was dead.

Dr. Cullen rolled twice on the pale dirt road, his next movement was so fast it appeared blurred. All Scully saw was the result; Carlisle was now several yards away, up in a bizarre crouch. Scully touched her head, wondering if she had sustained a concussion. Surely-surely-she was hallucinating. But, no. The doctor was definitely crouching defensively in the middle of the road, scanning the surrounding trees like a hawk. He was alive, unharmed-

And whatever else he was, he was not human.

Scully threw the car into life before the thought was a conscious one, and she reversed almost that fast. Luckily, the car was functional. As she shoved into gear her heart began to pound, making up for her shock of the last few minutes and covering her in sweat.

What had she just seen? It couldn't be-it would be so typical-not what Mulder-Her mind was in a tizzy trying to piece together the images of the accident. One thing she knew for certain: she was right to feel uneasy around the Cullens because they were not human. _They were not human_. No mortal man could recover so quickly after going through a windshield like that.

Scully shuddered and revved the car, shooting to sixty miles an hour. Whatever Carlisle Cullen was, she would put as much distance between him and her as she could. It just wasn't possible for him to be all right, moving around, crouching. Moving so rapidly that her eyes couldn't process him.

Unfortunately for her, Scully's mind was still rattled from the accident. She didn't realize that, rather than heading toward the police station as she'd intended, she was driving to the hotel. Every thought of the case had been blasted out of her. She was possessed of an animal instict to get away from the creature that was Dr. Cullen.

Consequently, she drove through the deep puddle in the road without slowing down. She had time to think, 'Not again,' and then she hydroplaned and hit the tree.

Scully awoke a moment later, disoriented by the glass covering her in a chunky dust. She stared at it for a second, then groaned, rolling her head to clear it. _Not her day_.

Something moved by her window and then her door swung open. "Mulder?" Scully asked, looking to the side.

She gasped at the unfamiliar face leaning toward her, the syringe in his hand, his rough grip as he hauled her out of the car. She pawed uselessly at the holster on her hip, but the needle bit into her her neck and her hands fell limp. Her body followed soon after.

On the sandy floorboard of the Toyota, her cell phone rang.


	27. Chapter 27 Victory

**Author's Note: Special thanks to anonymous reviewer Herping and Derping for your stalkerish-fan spiel! I appreciated it. :)**

**Song for this chapter (highly appropriate): .com/watch?v=qPTTO_bhxoI A great, X-Files style rendition of Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven. :)**

**Enjoy?**

27. Victory

She was his, at last.

The redheaded female appeared even smaller up close. She dangled feet above the air in his arms, not even touching his knees. Her face was white and still, effects from the needle. He smiled at her, imagining her screams. She was a strong female, but she would be unable to hold in her cries of pain when he started in on her.

He bent toward her and sniffed. Even through the glass and dust, he could smell her. And she smelled as delicious as ever. This fight had been worth it; she was his now.

A door closing made him back up and carry her to his vehicle. He lowered her gently to the backseat, remembering to pull the needle out of her. Her eyelids flickered. With another smile, he climbed in and used the key to start the vehicle.

It had worked out so well. Nothing could stop him now. She belonged to him now.


	28. Chapter 28 Mulder

**Author's Note: Sorry for the delay! And sorry if this story is taking too long page-wise, too. I do plan to wrap it up very soon. :)**

**Song for this chapter: Through the Storm by Dax Johnson ** .com/watch?v=JYTnrD6xxfo **(I think it's very Mulder)**

**Enjoy!**

28. Mulder

Leaning back in his chair, Mulder checked his watch. It had been almost forty minutes since Scully last texted him. What was taking her so long? She had already performed an autopsy on the body. What did she expect to find at the crime scene, a missing hair that would solve the case?

Well, Mulder supposed, she could find a clue about the killer. That was probably why Scully had gone, to divine some motive and method to these seemingly senseless murders. And what had that text about the pathologist meant? What pathologist? As far as he knew the only medical man involved in the case was also a suspected vampire.

Unless...Mulder sat up straighter in his chair, letting the legs hit the ground. Unless Scully thought that maybe this pathologist was going to be the next victim. No, that didn't make sense; if he had been missing so long because he was hunted by this killer, he would already be dead. That left two options: he had something to do with the Cullens, or...

A sudden flashback to an image in his mind made Mulder launch out of his chair and race back to his room, almost breaking the card key in the door. Once inside he took the folded newspaper from his airport bag and flipped it over to the front page. Underneath the bold heading declaring the paper as THE PORTLAND SUN, there were several main articles designed to catch a reader's attention. The article Mulder remembered was scrunched into the right corner next to an inane report on the local beer festival. Its title sent off sparks in Mulder's head:

_**Seattle Doctor Still Missing-Police and Family Mystified. **_

_This week Portland Sun reporter Daniel _

_Johnson questioned Sergeant Sam McCray_

_of Seattle Police Department about any _

_new updates on the wherabouts of missing_

_pathologist Dr. Graeson Hughes. Although_

_Sergeant McCray did not have any fresh_

_clues about the doctor's disappearance, he_

_was willing to offer several comments. _

_'This is one of the strangest disappearances_

_I have ever encountered,' says McCray. _

_'It's almost like he [Dr. Hughes] has_

_vanished off the face of the earth, not a _

_trace left of him.'_

_Sergeant McCray would not give us access_

_to Dr. Hughes's younger sister, Sandra, but_

_we did speak with Dr. Helen Zelinski, a _

_physiologist at Harborview Medical Center_

_and a long-time friend of Dr. Hughes. _

_'I just hope Graeson is all right,' said Dr._

_Zelinski. 'He's a great doctor and he does_

_not deserve for anything bad to happen to _

_him.' _

_Dr. Hughes was last seen by an orderly_

_at Harborview at ten o'clock on May fourth. _

_He was reportedly headed to another hospital_

_for an autopsy. Sergeant McCray encourages_

_anyone who might know Dr. Hughes's _

_whereabouts to go to the police immediately._

_'Sandra is desperate for some information,'_

_said Dr. Zelinski, 'and I would not mind some_

_hope, myself.' _

Mulder stared at the article's cramped black print long after he had read it. Something was trying to come together in his mind, but it just wouldn't come. It was like his brain had erected a brick wall around the answer to the doctor's disappearance. For something to do, he pulled out his phone and scanned the messages Scully had recently sent. They didn't give him any clues, just an order to look at the video feeds for signs of the missing pathologist.

_Think, think, think_, Mulder ordered himself. Scully knew. What did she know? What had made her change plans? And where was she now? He felt like she should have texted him, maybe when she got to the Swan residence or when she found some evidence.

He was supposed to be going to La Push, Mulder remembered, to question Sam Uley. Strangely, it didn't seem that important to him anymore; it was almost irrelevant to the case. There was a new twist to the mystery, and he was missing it. Still, he couldn't ignore it. He had a score to settle with Uley that he intended to fulfill.

"Scully..." Mulder muttered, thumbing through his messages. It wasn't like her to throw something out about the case and then not follow through. He hoped she was all right at the crime scene. In a moment of uncertainty, he got up and went to the hotel entrance, peering out at the street facing him. Maybe he should go to the Swan residence and make sure Scully was there, that she was all right.

With his eyes ufocused, Mulder almost missed the dark shape at the very edge of his vision. But the even larger shape growing out of the ground that stuck out of the other shape caught his attention. Mulder pressed his face to the glass door, squinting-then his breath caught. "Oh, no," he breathed, and charged out the door.

Someone had wrecked their car hundreds of yards from the hotel, driven it right into a large tree sprouting out of the concrete. As Mulder ran toward it, however, he saw that there didn't appear to be anyone inside the vehicle. "Hello!" he called. "Is anyone there? Are you okay?"

There wasn't anyone in the car. Weird. In Mulder's experience, people don't just drive their cars into trees and skip away. When he finally reached the Toyota's tinted windows he peered into the interior; no sign of an owner at all. But, wait, there was cell phone on the floor. Mulder tried the door and, since it was unlocked, he reached in and plucked the phone from the plastic rug.

His heart literally stopped, then started again twice as fast. The phone's screen was lit up with a chilling heading:

_From: ME_

_To: MULDER_

_Hey_

And that was it for the text. But it was enough to let Mulder know whose phone this was, whose car had crashed into a tree, and whose body-unconscious, injured, unscathed-was nowehere to be found.


	29. Chapter 29 Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

**Author's Note: Another _different_ POV for my avid readers! I just wanted to thank those of you who have stuck with this story for almost a year, those who have just recently begun to read, and those who haven't started reading yet! You all will be excited to know that the pieces are finally coming together. I have actually had the climax written up for several months, and now I'm working on one more segue chapter and the ending. :) I'm psyched! **

**Song...: .com/watch?v=RAU4qVUKPG8 Here It Goes Again by OK Go (more of a joke than anything)**

**Enjoy!**

29. FBI Headquarters, Washignton D.C.

Assisant FBI Director Walter Skinner entered his office to find the phone on his desk blinking. Again. It seemed like every time he stepped out for coffee, some frantic agent left a message on his machine. Years of experience and hours of training apparently flew out the window whenever a special agent ran into a crisis. Was calling him the first thing they did _every time _a case didn't go according to plan?

With a sigh akin to that of an irritated parent, Skinner set his coffee down and hit the 'play' button on his answering machine. The voice that rattled out of the cheap speaker made the assistant director straighten just a little. "Director Skinner," said the voice of Fox Mulder, rushed and breathless as it usually was, "I don't have much time, but I want you to listen carefully to what I'm about to say."

_Okay, easily done_. Skinner picked up his mug and took a draft of coffee as a series of scuffles and taps issued out of the machine. It sounded like Mulder was running, slamming a car door, maybe? Whatever he was up to, it didn't sound too serious...yet. Of course, with Mulder, nearly everything turned serious pretty quickly.

"Director Skinner, Agent Scully and I have found some shocking evidence here in Forks. I don't have time to explain it all, but I would like you to pay close attention to what I'm saying."

"Get _on_ with it, Mulder," muttered Skinner, slurping his coffee.

A thousand miles away, Mulder seemed to comply to Skinner's wish. "If I don't call you back in two hour's time to tell you I'm fine, assume I am dead. Assume Agent Scully is dead. Assume we've both been killed."

_What, now?_ "Mulder..." Skinner's ear was glued to the answering machine, his coffee long forgotten on the desk. Mouth slightly ajar, he didn't even bother to explain when a secretary gave him a peculiar look as she passed by.

Mulder was still talking. "If it's been two hours and I'm dead, I want you to put Sam Uley and Doctor Carlisle Cullen under arrest. Sam Uley, Carlisle Cullen," he said, repeating the names carefully, and Skinner nodded even though Mulder couldn't see him. "Take them in for questioning about our murders and the murders of three women."

Skinner wished Mulder had called his personal phone, not his desk set. If this case in Washington was as bizarre as it was beginning to sound, he didn't want anyone who might be listening in to stop him from carrying out Mulder's request. Skinner knew his line had been bugged for years. He could only hope Mulder knew this and wasn't going to give one of his quack explanations along with his dramatic statement.

"The proof you need for their involvement in this case is inside the air conditioning unit in my hotel room in Forks," Mulder said, his breath coming faster now. "There's case files and a video tape. There's also another person involved, and his name is Graeson Hughes. He was a pathologist and now he's gone missing."

_Pathologist, Cullen, Uley, AC unit, Washington_, Skinner recited in his head, committing the facts to memory. _Forks. Hotel. Murders, multiple. _

Sometimes Mulder disturbed Skinner with his theories about alien hybrids (more true than not, he'd eventually realized) and his gun-waving tendencies. But past experience with his old friend Gut Feelings was telling him to believe Mulder on this one. Once the message stopped playing, Skinner played it again twice more. He erased it as soon as he knew it was stored in his mind, put on his coat, locked his office, and strode away.

A ticket to Washington would be kind of pricey. He would wait in the airport for the two hours, and then he would move. Acting on information was in his nature, and Skinner was sure Mulder would not want this case relegated to a lesser person than the Assistant Director himself.

Skinner pulled his car keys out of his pocket and frowned up at the sky. He sure hoped Mulder would give him that call in a couple hours.

Plane tickets weren't cheap these days.


	30. Chapter 30 Mulder

**Author's Note: As Robin would say-Holy X-Files, Batman! That's one massive fanfiction crossover! **

**We are now coming to the end of this nearly year-long journey, my friends! I will upload several chapters today which encapsulate the climax of POST MORTEM. I hope it lives up to your expectations! Please note: I tried not to draw out certain scenes too long, which is why they may seem a little abrupt for some people's taste. But there's nothing worse than a stretched-out killer/victim scene, in my opinion. *spoiler* :) Tell me what you think!**

**Enjoy!**

30. Mulder

A young, gangly boy leapt out of the way as Mulder's borrowed car careened around the corner to Sam Uley's house. The boy yelled some profanity at Mulder's fender. It left no impression on the agent, who at the moment was seeing a very pungent shade of red.

Sam Uley was the only person connected to the case that Mulder could easily track down; he was also the boy who had been standing over Scully's bed like the friendly neighborhood stalker. So he was going to face the wrath of the Mulder provoked. There were bullets in his gun, a cell phone in his pocket, and fire not to be quenched burning in his chest.

Anger struck Mulder like heartburn sometimes, with the same predictability. Certain sights or knowledge about a case would set it off. And heaven help whoever stood in his way when it hit.

Sam Uley was sitting on his bare porch when Mulder spun into view. The wheels of his car sprayed red mud in foot-high columns as he slammed to a stop. "Where is she?" he demanded, hand on his gun. "Where's Scully?"

"Agent Mulder? I-"

"You know where she is, don't you?" Mulder felt his eyes flash.

Sam seemed to hang for a moment, indecisive, but then he stood and motioned for Mulder to come inside. "Come on, Agent Mulder, we need to talk."

"I don't have time to _talk_, Uley! Scully is missing, her car has been wrecked, and her body is gone! Where is she?"

"I don't-"

"WHERE IS SHE?"

"The Cullens have taken her!" Sam said, the words bursting from him.

Mulder rocked back a little on his heels; although he had anticipated it, he hadn't expected the answer to come so freely. "How are you so sure?" he asked, suspiciously.

Sam seemed to realize what he had said. He shrank back a little from Mulder, who took this opportunity to advance on the hulking young man. Once he was standing feet from Sam, Mulder nodded at him to continue. "I've been watching the Cullens for weeks," the boy said, quietly but steadily. "Ever since Bella Swan came back from Arizona in a cast. I thought it was strange, that her story was too convenient. Now all these women have been killed and it just seems too coincidental."

"You were in Scully's room," Mulder said accusingly, not in the mood for amateur sleuth antics.

"I was keeping watch over her. I'm a protector, Agent Mulder. I don't hurt people."

"And I'm just supposed to accept that at face value?" But even as he said it, Mulder remembered his intial impression of Sam when he saw him on the tapes. The passage from _Ancient Legends _sprang to mind:

_Select men of the Quileute tribe have believed it their duty for many generations to protect their people against supernatural forces..._

"I think you've accepted a lot more at face value than that." Sam broke into his thoughts with an oddly piercing look, and Mulder wondered if Seth Clearwater had spilled the beans. "There's someting else I need to tell you. Carlisle Cullen was with Agent Scully all morning, and he left the hopsital with her."

"_What?_" How could Scully have been so naive?

"I think we both know what's happened to her, sir."

Mulder tried to ignore the eery feeling that slid over his skin at the words. He got down to business, Scully's wrecked car looming darkly in his mind. "Look. Sam. I think I believe you about your position in all this, so if you _are_ some kind of protector, I suggest you do your job and help me find my partner."

Casually, he checked the safety on his gun; with a gentle click, he switched it off, giving Sam a nice view as he did so. "Otherwise, I'm putting you under arrest-right now-until I figure out what kind of freak show is being run around here."

Sam stared intently into Mulder's eyes with an unfathomable expression, and suddenly Mulder was transported back to a time centuries ago, when the Quileute legends were formed. Legends of wolves, of spirit animals...of Cold Ones.

"I will help you find her," said Sam at last. "I know where she is."

All thoughts of arrest and intimidation were swept from Mulder's mind. "Where?" he asked, his mouth dry.

Sam smiled grimly and shed his light cotton t-shirt. "The woods."


	31. Chapter 31 Who's Afraid?

**AN: **

**Song: Waiting for the End by Linkin Park .com/watch?v=v6DNeIF71_M&feature=view_all&list=PL3AD6073D54634743&index=10**

**Enjoy!**

31. Who's Afraid?

Scully woke up with the truth echoing in her brain like a gunshot. She felt her heart begin to recover from the effects of the drug, picking up its pace. Biting back her terror, she rolled quietly to the side, trying not to unbalance her hazy consciousness.

The wind blew her blazer's tail onto her back as she landed on her elbows in an army crawl. Shaking her head once, she stared at the patch of cobalt blue she could see between the thick trees of the Hoh. That's where she had to go, maybe that was the highway. Or maybe it led deeper into the forest. It didn't matter as long as she got away from her current position. She had to escape-

Scully felt his presence before she heard his voice. It was an aura of evil that made her cringe like an abused dog.

"Stop." His voice lacked the musical timbre of the other suspects; it was flat and dead.

Scully closed her eyes and begged herself to _think_. She swallowed and tried to speak, but no noise came. Besides, she knew there wasn't anything she could say to convince him to let her go.

"I have to kill you, Dr. Scully." The voice was closer to her now. Scully wanted to see what he, the Forks killer, looked like, but she couldn't bring herself to look.

No. If she was going to die-and she didn't doubt she would, because she had seen the bodies-then she wanted to memorize the face of her killer. She wanted _him_ to remember _her_ face. Before she could change her mind, she rotated on her arms and met the source of her terror with as much courage as she could muster.

"You don't have to kill me," Scully said, talking to cover up her gasp as she saw his face.

He was pale, but it was a different kind of pale than the Cullens. His was a pasty pale, white and unhealthy. It took Scully a minute to understand his ghoulish complexion with her frozen mind. In a moment she realized it; the paleness was white cream makeup from a halloween store spread in copious amounts all over his skin. And his hair was indeed blonde, shining in the dim light.

But his eyes were what truly betrayed him. Though they glinted in the white oval of his face, even from her position on the ground Scully could see their color: blue to match his fair hair. Neither red nor amber.

As she looked in horror at her killer, Scully felt a surge of triumph, too. For once, she had been more right about a case than Mulder. The Forks killer was no Cullen and no vampire. He had no special speed or strength. He was as mortal as she was, and therefore breakable.

But in this moment he was as equally dangerous as any supernatural predator to her. He had her alone in the forest, and no one knew where she was. Where was Mulder? Scully thought, her mind scattered in pieces. _Where was Mulder?_

"But I need your blood," her killer said, breaking her thoughts into further slivers. He came forward, reaching into his pocket. "I need your sweet blood. It calls to me."

Her blood. He was insane. He thought he was a vampire, Scully realized in a flash, watching as he finally reached her. He believed he needed blood to survive.

She couldn't let him have hers, otherwise he would just kill her, mutilate her corpse, and move on to his next victim.

"No!" With a burst of speed born by panic, Scully jumped unsteadily to her feet and lurched forward, dodging around her killer in a wide arch. If she went forward he wouldn't expect it and it would take longer for him to recover-

She was seized from behind, by her hair, and thrown far backwards. Scully let out a raw gasp as she hit the ground, the breath pushed out of her. As she fought for breath her killer bent over her and seized her arm. With dread she felt herself jerked forward by the wrist. Cool and knowledgeable, her killer wrenched her arm around and pulled. Scully screamed as her elbow broke.

But he wasn't done yet, Scully noticed in fear. He was reaching for her other arm. "No, don't, please-"

The pain from her other arm as it was jarred from its socket brought out another scream. "You shouldn't have tried to run," her killer said, over her scream. "I wouldn't have done that to you, poor human. The others tried to run as well."

Scully blinked back the tears of pain in her eyes and took breaths, sucking in oxygen as blackness edged her vision. "Please, don't hurt me," she said. She couldn't recognize her own voice. "You don't have to. Please, don't."

"I already have, Dr. Scully." His icy hand touched her face briefly, a light stroke. Then he released her, and she fell onto the ground, helpless now.

Squeezing her eyes shut against the pain of her maimed arms, Scully waited for death.


	32. Chapter 32 The End Game

**AN:**

**Song: Rex Tremendae in Mozart's Requiem .com/watch?v=C4nazch9qe4 **

**Enjoy!**

32. The End Game

He was racing through the forest at a speed so swift that he barely rattled the leaves as he passed. The scent was here, strong and fresh. He bared his teeth and urged his feet to go faster. Amazingly, he gained momentum. He had never run like this before, and he'd never had need before. But now...

Lives hung upon his speed. It was not only Dana Scully's life in jeopardy; it was the many lives of other women that would follow her should he fail. It didn't matter to him that he was dissolving oaths made a century ago. Considered in a rational light, his actions would be upholding the treaty more than allowing the deaths to continue ever would. But that didn't matter. He would face the consequence of going back on his word later.

There was a familiar scent and whisper of wind to announce Edward's presence beside him. The most significant testament to his speed was the fact that Edward didn't outstrip him as he ran. Instead, he raced inches from him, his eyes fierce and his teeth exposed. "We're getting closer," Edward said, just as the blur that was Alice materialized on his other side.

"Very close," Alice agreed, her voice more fierce than Edward's eyes. "Less than five miles. I'll be able to take us right to her." She leapt over a fallen log without slowing.

"Jasper and Emmett have taken the third route," Edward said. "I told them to wait for us to get there first."

"Good," he told them, knowing they expected an answer. In his mind, he planned the way in which they would end this tortuous game. Realistically, there could be no stalemate. To him, that meant that no one would win.

But so be it. He was finished playing the game.


	33. Chapter 33 Who's Alive?

**AN: **

**Song: Negligence by Mark Isham .com/watch?v=vc_b-mX8bHQ **

**Enjoy!**

33. Who's Alive?

Death was slow in coming.

Scully felt the pressure on her neck as a cold swab was pressed there. Even through her pain, she wondered at how strange her killer was. Why did he take the time to prep the skin? He was going to kill her; it wasn't as if she was going to need a clean needle and insertion. It wasn't like he wanted to numb the area and spare her pain.

She could feel the scratches on her back from her fall and the bruises already forming on her face. She didn't know where those came from, but she assumed her killer had made them while she had blacked out. With these other open sores, an alcohol swab was not going to do any good.

"Why..." Scully had meant to ask him about the swab, but she found that her voice was gone. She watched the killer look up from his work. His eyes, much closer now, looked eerily like her own.

Since she didn't say anything else, her killer ignored her, turning back to his work. Scully saw a flash of silver: the syringe that would soon be used to start the blood flow out of her body. She didn't think he would use the syringe for the entire procedure. That would take too long, and there had been bite marks on the other victims.

_Kill me first_, Scully wanted to scream. Death by blood loss would take an eternity. But she didn't think screaming would do any good, so she kept silent. Also, she didn't want to encourage him to hurt her further, to possibly break another bone. Still, temporary pain would be better than living through her own exsanguination.

Her report in the autopsy repeated itself in her mind. _Cause of death, strangulation and extreme hypovolemia_.

What a horrid, horrifying way to die.

Mulder was nowhere to be found, Scully thought in relief. Her killer couldn't get a hold of him and cause him pain. She fervently hoped she was dead and gone, with the killer in another state, by the time he found her. If that was the only way to end this with Mulder intact-if she had to die-then so be it.

_Mulder needed to stay away_.


	34. Chapter 34 Mulder

**AN: Sorry to leave you on such a cliffhanger before! I meant to post some other chapters, but I had to go shoot fireworks. Woe is me *sarcasm*. ;)**

**Song: Prayer in the Night by Amici Forever .com/watch?v=QFcTMb6kHjY&feature=BFa&list=AVGxdCwVVULXdk6DwTM_3cD4_QQX8UogkE&index=11 **

34. Mulder

The woods.

She could have been in there for hours.

She could be-

No.

He couldn't be too late.

"Scully!" he shouted as soon as he reached the forest, gun held low as he ran. "Hurry, Sam!"

"Agent Mulder, stay here."

Mulder didn't even acknowledge Sam's command. Scully was out there with some deranged killer, and Sam would have to break his legs to stop him from finding her and shooting the murderer dead if he had hurt her.

"Agent Mulder, stop!"

Mulder shook his head. Sam didn't pick up on hints very well. His hand touched the bark of the first row of trees.

Sam's large hand latched itself onto his shoulder and spun him around. "You have no idea what's happening out there," Sam said urgently. "I can help your partner more than you can, believe me. I'll save her, I promise."

"I understand enough," Mulder said. "Someone's going to kill Scully! That's all that matters to me!"

"Just wait here. I'll be back in a second." Sam shoved him back toward La Push with a powerful arm and took off running into the woods. Mulder put out a foot to tear after him, but some instinct held him back. A moment later, the hair on his arms raised till it stood straight up on his skin. Mulder stared hard at this warning sign, then hard at the trees. Where had Sam gone so fast?

There was a noise like a miniature thunderstorm, and then something began to crash toward him from inside the forest. Mulder automatically took a step back, leveling his gun at head height. His nerves were already wound tight as a violin string. He was ready to shoot anything that came at him, be it bear or lion or-

Wolf. Giant, enormous, huge wolf. Although he keenly felt the time slipping by, Mulder could only gape in astonishment at the monstrous creature that towered over him now. Ebony fur and vibrant yellow eyes made it a thing straight from one of his nightmares as a child.

The wolf leaned down and made eye contact with Mulder. It snorted once, and the noise was intelligent, an impatient sigh.

Seth Clearwater's wolf stories had been dead right, Mulder thought.

But he was wasting precious minutes in disbelief over something no more far-fetched than aliens. Scully was out there in desperate need of help, and he was sitting here acting like he'd never seen a werewolf before.

Mulder gestured mutely with his gun and plunged back into the forest, the giant wolf's paws pounding close behind him.

Scully couldn't wait any longer for him.


	35. Chapter 35 Who's to Die?

**Author's Note: All right, the action has mounted. What is going to happen next, I wonder? **

**Songs: Furious Angels by Rob Dougan .com/watch?v=8qWePX39R40**

**and My Immortal, an instrumental version (which is amazing) by the Vitamin String Quartet .com/watch?v=vitjfSAD2mw&feature=related**

**Enjoy!**

35. Who's to Die?

Scully knew the end was coming soon, and she only prayed that she could lose consciousness. There was no other escape for her to take. She had tried to run and failed, but she was glad she had made the effort. Her father had taught her to go down with a fight.

Maybe there was one last thing she could do, Scully thought, without much conviction. If she could just lean forward and knock the syringe out of his hands, she might be able to end the ordeal sooner. Forcing the killer's hand to start hypovolemia more violently would increase blood volume loss in less time. She would essentially be killing herself faster, but since she was going to die, it seemed the best course to take.

With his face so near her own, Scully read the detached look in her killer's eyes as he brought the syringe down. She wasn't surprised that it was the same face Carlisle Cullen had worn at the beginning of the Maris autopsy; all physicians wore it sometime in their life. It was strange to think that the pathologist leaning above her used it when he was prepared to kill another victim.

"Does it hurt you?" asked Scully, her voice so faint she hardly heard it.

The killer answered her, though. "Does the blood hurt me?"

"No." Scully kept her eyes on the syringe. "The killings. Do they affect you at all? Do you care that you've shamed our profession?"

The question did not register on the killer's face; the syringe was positioned. "I'm not a doctor, Agent Scully."

"Yes, you are. You were a pathologist in Seattle. You were supposed to come to Forks to help with an old autopsy." Despite the protest from her stiff shoulder, Scully tensed her muscles, ready to spring.

"I am not Dr. Hughes," her killer said evenly. "And I will enjoy your blood with pleasure."

Despite her dire situation, Scully smiled at the slip her killer had made. Then there was the moment; the tip of the needle was descending toward her. Gritting her teeth as her shoulder threatened to tear apart, Scully rose up from the ground and smacked the syringe with her useless arm, crying out as the bones ground against each other.

Her killer snarled as the syringe went spinning off into the dark. In anger, he slammed his hand down on her arm with a splintering blow. Scully heard herself groan aloud. She retracted her arm and silently accepted the second blow delivered to her face.

"If you're a vampire," Scully whispered, "then finding that syringe..." She inhaled, staying afloat in consciousness. "...it should be no problem."

With a cruel jerk, her killer seized her wrist and turned it over to the pale, venous side. He drew his lips back and brought her arm to his mouth.

Relieved, Scully fainted.

...was brought to life again by an unnatural sound. It sounded like the roar of an enraged lion, but even in her dazed state Scully knew there were no lions in Forks. The noise was joined a second later by a quieter snarling sound. Scully felt her arm drop to her chest.

"If you do that, I will kill you," a furious voice said into the darkness behind Scully's eyelids. She blinked reflexively, desire to see who had interrupted the killer forcing her eyes open.

The pale skin of three figures shone through the darkness of the forest with iridescent clarity. Scully stared hard at the white faces and finally managed to focus on the one closest to her: an unnaturally beautiful face she'd seen at her hotel window what seemed like a year ago. Edward Cullen's face was twisted into a blacker version of itself, transforming his angel's features into those a demon.

"It's too late," the killer said calmly. He was still kneeling by Scully's side. "I've won."

"Your game has ended," another voice, one Scully easily recognized, said just as calmly.

Her killer laughed. "It's almost over, true." Scully looked at him, her chest weighted down with dread. She couldn't feel anything but numbed terror. He had something he planned to do to her, something the three Cullens couldn't stop. She knew it.

"If you hurt her again, we're going to have to put an end to you. Don't make us do that, for your own sake."

With a careless flick, her killer drew out the switchblade inside his worn coat. Scully tracked the blade with her eyes as it swung toward her.

Suddenly knife and killer were gone. Scully strained to see where he'd gone. Fear of more pain driving her partially out of her mind, she painstakingly flipped herself over, letting another cry out at the agony in her shoulder, and started to crawl, dragging herself through the leaves.

"Shh, Dana, it's okay," whispered a light voice, a girl's. Scully felt an ice-cold hand on her shoulder; she nearly fainted again from the pressure.

"My shoulder!" gasped Scully.

"I'm sorry," said Alice Cullen, her voice stricken, and the hand withdrew. "It's okay now, Dana," Alice said. "We've got you."

"Where is he?" asked Scully, hearing her own voice shake intensely.

Alice's eyes cut subtly to a place several feet from where she and Scully were. Consciously controlling her shivering, Scully looked over at the spot, and began to tremble more.

Somehow, while she'd been crawling, two more white-faced figures had joined the four now engaged in a violent tableau thirty feet from the two women. One of her avenging angels had the killer caught up against a tree, pinning him to it with one hand. As Scully watched in disbelief, Alice rose from her crouch and moved too fast for human eyes to trace her, appearing at the side of one of the new figures.

"You pathetic animal," spat Edward Cullen. For a moment, Scully thought he was the one holding her killer to a tree, but then she saw his glinting hair in a beam of moonlight. He was standing next to Alice and a figure Scully now recognized as Jasper. "I should have killed you the minute I knew it was you," Edward said bitterly.

Her killer gave a strangled laugh. "Finally," he said hoarsely. "Finally."

"Finally what?" said Jasper coldly.

Edward growled at the killer in fury. "He's drawn this whole thing out so Carlisle would be forced to kill him. He hates Carlisle."

"You're an idiot," the other figure told the killer, equally irate as Edward. "Now we've all got the pleasure of ripping you to pieces."

Scully felt a thrill jolt through her entire body.

"We don't have to do that," Jasper said, oddly tranquil. "Just snap his neck, Carlisle. It's painless. I would know."

"Why do you hate me, Graeson?" Carlisle asked.

"So much blood," Scully's killer said. "How do you take it without anyone the wiser?"

"I don't."

"You must." Coughing, the killer made a sudden, twitching movement toward Scully. Carlisle yanked him back with ease. "You must!" the killer repeated, snarling.

"Carlisle," Edward interrupted, "Sam Uley's coming. We have to hurry." When there was no response, he spoke again. "Finish it now, Carlisle."

Scully swallowed, thinking past her pain, grasping at the meaning of the killer's words. _The blood...you take it..._It was true, then, what Mulder had been saying. The Cullens' eyes, their speed...the way Carlisle was holding the man to the tree, like it didn't take any effort at all.

They were vampires. They were going to kill the killer. Would they drink his blood afterwards? She hoped he didn't feel too much pain. He was a killer, but he was obviously insane. He had probably been a great pathologist. Scully found her mind wandering, dazed from her injuries.

There was a loud, growling noise from behind her. The Cullens stepped back from the killer at once, turning toward where Scully lay. She saw, as through a filmy screen, Carlisle Cullen take half a step toward her and stop as the growling noise came again, very loud. Was it standing right over her, whatever it was? It must be huge, to make that much noise.

Something was leaning over her and touching her. She opened her eyes long enough to find out what it was. "Scully," Mulder breathed, his face over hers.

Scully wanted to say, "Mulder," but then she felt an insurmountable pressure descend on her. She closed her eyes again and caved under the load.


	36. Chapter 36 Mulder

**Author's Note: I hope these last few chapters have met everyone's expectations. And I hope you don't mind that I strung them all together in one huge clump, either. I honestly thought I shouldn't keep the readers waiting any longer. :)**

**Song: Too Late by M83 .com/watch?v=qSMeriXQ2ss (and may I say, this is the most moving song I've heard in a long time)**

**Enjoy!**

36. Mulder

"Scully?" He had seen her eyes open, register his face, and then fall closed again. She was breathing shallowly. He could tell her shoulder was hurt, maybe dislocated. Her other arm was wrenched around at a sickening angle. He didn't want to touch it for fear of damaging it further.

Mulder cradled Scully to him, as gently as he could. He had made it to the clearing in which Scully lay minutes after Sam Uley, his lungs seared from the exertion. He'd never run that fast, not even in a marathon. But he'd forgotten all about his own exhaustion as he'd seen Scully lying broken on the ground.

He would kill the man who did this to her. That is, if he wasn't already dead. If that was the case, he would drive a stake through his heart, burn him to ashes, whatever it took to make sure he never hurt Scully or anyone else again. Mulder thought that was fair.

The loud rumble of Sam Uley's growl made Mulder look up. The giant werwolf was crouched ready to spring, his hackles raised. Craning his neck, Mulder leaned around the bulk of the oversized animal to divine the source of Sam's unease.

Six of the seven Cullens were gathered into a loose formation opposite Sam. The wolf was so huge that his front haunch came up to Carlisle Cullen's shoulder, and Alice Cullen was dwarfed by the animal. The Cullens' posture indicated that they knew what Sam Uley thought of them and were not at all sure what he was going to do about it, but they didn't seem surprised to see Sam in the form of a giant wolf.

Mulder had a few seconds to wonder how and why the Cullens were in the same clearing as Scully, where the killer was, and how he was going to find the killer before all was explained to him.

Carlisle broke the silence over the group. "Greetings, Sam Uley ." The doctor's voice sounded strained, and he threw a glance in Mulder's direction as he spoke.

"Carlisle Cullen." Mulder was startled by the flat voice. He looked at Sam, but it was clear that the wolf hadn't spoken.

"You're on my land," the voice continued. Mulder finally tracked it to the mouth of Edward Cullen, standing to Carlisle's right. "You've broken our treaty. I can't overlook that." Edward's face was expressionless, like he had fallen into some kind of trance. When Sam snorted at the young man in annoyance, it somehow clicked in Mulder's head.

_He could read minds? _

"I broke the treaty for an entirely different reason than you believe," Carlisle said.

"You've killed this woman," Sam-through Edward-said. Mulder was still trying to wrap his head around that.

Carlisle shook his head slowly, as if afraid to make a sudden movement. "No, I didn't."

"For one thing, Dana's still alive," pointed out tiny Alice Cullen. Mulder held Scully a little closer as the girl's eyes fell on them.

"This is the killer," said Jasper Cullen from his place by a tree, and, with a movement faster than thought, he flipped a figure around to show Sam. In the moonlight it was hard for Mulder to make the figure out, but he could tell it was male, tall, and blonde. The killer's skin was freakishly pale, but not in the same way as the Cullens. Mulder knew right away that the man was not...whatever this strange family had turned out to be.

"Graeson Hughes," Jasper Cullen continued, shaking the man like a rag doll before Sam's narrowed yellow eyes. "A pathologist from Harborview hospital in Seattle. If you don't believe us, you can look him up. He's been missing for over a month. He was supposed to come here, to Forks, to help with the first Forks Killer autopsy. He never showed."

Mulder felt his mouth fall open. If the Cullens were telling the truth, Scully had been right. Her text about the pathologist...she had solved the case.

"_Graeson Hughes_ was killing those women," added another Cullen, one who just stepped out of the shadows of the trees. Mulder was startled to see she was the same blonde woman he'd seen on the security camers feeds, and she was unearthly. Even though Mulder's mind was foggy with worry over Scully, the woman's beauty eclipsed anything else for the moment it took him to recognize her.

Sam growled at this new addition to the gathering; apparently he recognized her, too. "Look," the woman told him, "you may not like us, Uley, but you have to know that we're telling you the honest truth. No other explanation makes sense. Dana Scully was on to this man when he got to her. She could tell you."

"Only she can't." Mulder hadn't realized he'd spoken until he heard his voice, cracked and ragged, echo into the air. The Cullens and Sam turned to look at him. The rest of the words came tumbling out of Mulder like bullets from a machine gun, uncontrollable. "And I don't care whose fault this is at the moment-" he showed them Scully, bleeding and broken, "but if someone doesn't pay for what they did to her, I will tell every single person in the bureau what went on here. I'll make sure someone pays. No-" he stopped Edward Cullen in his tracks, "no, don't you touch her!" He pressed Scully tighter to him.

The man in Jasper's grasp gave a half-mad laugh at Mulder's harsh tone.

"Fox," Alice Cullen said softly, "we aren't going to hurt you."

Mulder wasn't listening; he didn't care what they had to say. Carefully, oh so carefully, he lifted Scully off the ground, keeping his eyes on the people in front of him. "Don't let him go," he told Jasper.

The blonde man nodded. "I won't, Agent Mulder." The white-faced man simply watched Mulder back away, a disdainful smile visible from thirty feet sliding across his lips.

Mulder got sixty feet into the forest before one of them appeared beside him. "Agent Scully needs my help, right now," said Carlisle Cullen, and somehow Mulder could not doubt the truth of his words. "Her injuries are life-threatening, Agent Mulder, and they must be corrected before she goes into irreversible shock."

Some base instinct screamed at Mulder to run from the doctor facing him. He took a few more steps back from Carlisle. "The nearest hospital is twenty-five minutes away," Carlisle persisted. "Please, Agent Mulder, let me help her. We are trying to help you."

"How did she get like this, then?" Mulder demanded. "I saw how fast you are; how did she ever get hurt like this?"

"I'm sorry," Carlisle said, his amber eyes full of vicarious pain. "Agent Scully ran away from me and Hughes found her first. I'm so sorry, Agent Mulder."

An obstruction in his throat that felt too much like tears prevented Mulder from speaking. He stared down at Scully's deathly pale face, brushing a sweaty strand of hair from her blue mouth. "Not as sorry as I am," he finally said, and surrendered most of Scully to the doctor, but did not let go of her hand.


	37. Chapter 37 Is This Real?

**Author's Note: So, we have reached the Almost-Over mark in this very long adventure. It's been an interesting ride, hasn't it? This is NOT the last chapter of Post Mortem, but there should not be more than three or four chapters after this one. I'm just going to tie up a couple loose ends for my readers. :) I hope it doesn't drag too long after the thrilling climax. **

**Enjoy!**

37. Is This Real?

Scully heard the irritating beep a fourth time. She twisted on the springy surface and got a sharp twinge of pain in her shoulder. The beep sounded again. Frowning, she reached out to turn off whatever was making that maddening noise-

And found that her arm was in a cast, fixed tightly to her chest by a sling. With her eyes wide open, Scully took in the monitors circled around her, the lightweight blankets smoothed over her legs, and the laminated hospital mattress she was lying on. "Mulder?"

"You're awake," said Mulder's voice. Scully turned to see him entering through the door at the back of the tiny room. "Hey, Scully," he said, smiling. Scully could tell he was much more worried about her than he let on. "Still walking and talking, huh?"

"Not much walking," Scully said, gesturing to her swathed legs. "And not much talking, apparently. How long have I been here? What happened, after-?" She avoided saying, 'After I passed out from the excruciating pain.' Why not spare Mulder some of the gory details?

"Well, that's a long story. And I don't feel qualified to tell it." Mulder hesitated, then said, "Someone wants to talk to you, Scully. You want me to let her in?"

Her? Scully knew exactly who it was: Alice. Taking a deep breath, she allowed herself a moment to consider. Unwillingly, she remembered her last recollection of Alice Cullen: a face hovering above her in the darkness, a hand on her shoulder, crushing her dislocated scapula. Scully shook off the terror accompanying the memory with a shudder.

"Scully? I can tell her no, if you need rest."

"Did you see them, Mulder?" asked Scully, looking up at her partner. She went on without an answer. "You were right, Mulder, you were right all along. Their speed, their strength..."

With a twist to his mouth, Mulder shook his head. "I was wrong about one thing: their motives. And that was the most important thing about them." He came and sat at the foot of her bed, giving her ankle a squeeze. "I can send her away if you need time."

"No, no, let her in." As Mulder stood up and went to the door, Scully tried to straighten her emotions out. In truth, Scully owed the Cullens. She would be dead without them. Somehow, she had to thank them for exposing themselves, to FBI agents, no less, for her sake. They could have easily let her die-

Scully started as a different girl from the pale, black-haired one she had expected came in. "Hi," Bella Swan said, with a nervous smile. "Um...can I sit down?"

"Of course," Scully said, without really thinking. Mulder quietly slipped out of the room with some mutterings about coffee.

"Thank you." Bella didn't sit; instead, she stood awkwardly next to Scully's bed, her walking cast resting on her other leg and her chesnut hair partially hiding her face. "Um, I'm not sure how to say this, Dr. Scully, but...I just wanted to ask you not to tell the FBI about us."

Scully blinked, confused. "About...who?" Surely the girl didn't mean Bella and her dad.

"About my family. The Cullens," she added, seeing Scully's confusion. "About me and the Cullens."

"Oh." And here was the conflict: what to do with an entire nest of vampires lurking in Washington state. Dimly, Scully registered that Bella Swan considered herself an honorary Cullen. What that meant for the girl's plans for the future was too disturbing to contemplate.

"Well, Bella," Scully said, "I'm not sure at the moment what Mulder and I _should_ do about this situation."

"Oh, please, don't tell anyone about us," Bella interjected quickly, her large brown eyes earnest. "There are so many rules, Agent Scully-" she cut off suddenly, as if unsure if she had said too much. "There are really good reasons why the Cullens are in hiding, obviously," Bella finished, biting her lip.

"Rules? What rules?"

"It's not my place to tell you."

Scully winced as a stab of pain shot through her arm. "You're not doing such a stellar job of convincing me of anything, Bella." Seeing the hopeless look on the younger woman's face, she sighed. "I realize you're obligated to the Cullens to keep their secrets. But I already know the most important one: they're vampires." She had to force the last word out through gritted teeth. "So I think any other fact about them you could tell me would be a bit of an anticlimax."

"I know. I just..." Bella glanced around. "They don't really want me to talk to you, but I wanted you to realize that it's not just them who might suffer if you turn them in. My dad...he's police chief here. How would that look for him? And me..." The girl swallowed, blinking several times. Scully assumed it was some sort of calming mechanism. "Okay, this is going to sound weird to you, but I really love Edward and I don't want us to be separated for any reason. There." She took a breath. "I said it."

In love with a vampire. Oh, Chief Swan would have an aneurysm. To think, his only child giving herself up to a creature who was not even human. Scully had to suppress a shudder at the thought. "Bella...I can't make any promises. I'm sorry, that's all I can say at the moment. This situation is serious."

"They saved you, Dr. Scully," whispered Bella, her face now positively desperate. "Please, you must know how good they are!"

"I can't deny that they seem as good as anyone." _But they're vampires_, Scully wanted to add. That fact could not be ignored.

"They're better." Bella paused in her argument, then took the edge of her left sleeve and pulled it high above her elbow. "Look, Agent Scully." Holding her arm out, she leaned over so Scully would have a clear view.

It took a second for Scully to locate what she was supposed to see on the girl's arm, but then she gasped aloud. There, in a faint crescent-shaped pattern on Bella's skin, was a scar. To an untrained observer it would not be glaringly obvious as to what kind of injury would cause such a scar, but Scully knew instantly. This was the mark of human teeth, cut into Bella's skin like a grisly tattoo. "Who did this?" asked Scully, looking up from the old wound.

"His name was James," Bella said quietly. "He tried to kill me two months ago. He hunted me all the way to Phoenix, Arizona."

Scully went back to the scar and identified what was so odd about it. Not so sure she wanted to know the answer, she asked anyway. "Bella, why is it glittery?"

"Because James was a nomad, a vampire who travels around and kills humans for their blood. I was his target, Agent Scully. He would have killed me if it hadn't been for Edward and his family. I'm alive-" Bella's voice broke here, "because of Edward. He...he drew the venom back out of the bite so I wouldn't die, or turn into a vampire. He saved me just like he saved you."

Scully sat back on her mattress, gobsmacked. This new turn of events might change things. If the Cullens were making it a habit to save targeted victims of psychotic vampires (or just plain psychos, she supposed), perhaps she could be persuaded to cover for them. Maybe.

"And Carlisle saved me from bleeding to death," Bella hurried on eagerly, correctly interpreting Scully's expression. "The Cullens are-are-protectors, Agent Scully. They did everything they could to save you because they don't want humans to die!"

"Now, hold on, Bella. They're vampires. If they go around policing 'nomads,' don't you think their policy of vengeance is just a little hypocritical?"

"They don't kill humans!" said Bella, horrified. "They hunt animals!"

Oh, this just got better and better. Scully squeezed her eyes shut and tried to put a hand to her temple. When the tubes and cast stopped her she buried her forhead in her hospital blankets. "Kinder, gentler vampires. Just what I needed." But, of course, it _had_ been just what she needed. She could deny that as much as she could deny the fact that she was sitting in a hospital bed rather than a coffin.

"Please, Agent Scully, please." Bella seemed to have forsaken logic in favor of begging. "Please, keep the secret."

"Scully?" Mulder's head popped around the doorway. "Everything okay?"

"Yes, we're fine," Scully said.

"Good. I hope it stays that way, because there's a herd of Cullens headed our way."


	38. Chapter 38 Partners In Myth?

**Author's Note: The moment of revelation has come for our dynamic duo! I have estimated another two chapters after this, and then our rambling journey will come to an end, my friends. :)**

**I dedicate this chapter to the Mulder and Scully Barbie dolls I saved from a dusty fate at a garage sale the other day. Without those two characters, this story would not exist (you didn't need me to tell you that, did you?). **

**Enjoy!**

38. Partners in Myth?

"Oh, crap," Bella gasped, leaping an inch or two into the air. "Ah-oh-I wasn't here, okay?"

"Okay..." Scully watched the girl dart out of the room through the back door, her cast scraping and clunking against the tile. What kind of love made a nice girl like that fall for a vampire, Scully wondered. Surely not the routine feelings of summer romances and drive-in movies? Surely it was a seventeen year-old's attraction to the macabre, pursued to the extreme? A form of the gothic or emo subculture? A mania for dead people?

"Mulder..." Scully turned to her partner as he came to sit at her bed. "If you knew I was a vampire, would you still..."

Mulder raised his eyebrows.

Scully suddenly felt like laughing. "Nevermind. Too weird of a question."

"Scully," Mulder said, "if you were a vampire, you would have such a hard time believing it yourself, I doubt my opinion on the subject would even matter."

"Of course it would matter!" Scully winced as her shoulder twinged from her exclamation. "Admit it: you would do everything in your power to convince me it was real."

"Naturally. I might even go so far as to wave a couple pints of O Negative around."

"And where would you get that, the evidence lab? You'd try to poison me with contaminated blood?"

"You know that song, Scully. Tainted blood...tainted blood..." Mulder did a very bad impression of Soft Cell's main singer.

"And I think this conversation stops right _here_," said Scully, holding up her free palm for emphasis.

Mulder's smile froze on his face as the first Cullen stepped through the doorway. Scully watched as Carlisle approached her cautiously, wearing a white consultation coat and a guarded expression. "How are you feeling, Dana?" Scully did not miss this new form of address, like she was his patient. She made an easy connection in her mind: she _was_ Carlisle's patient, of course. No one else at the scene of the attack could have given her the level of medical attention her injuries had required.

Scully sighed. Just one more thing Carlisle Cullen had done for her. "I feel like I have a broken elbow, a broken shoulder, and a bruised face."

"And a stitched scalp," another voice added cheerfully, and Alice Cullen sailed through the door. Mulder had not moved from his position on Scully's bed, and his hand hovered over her as if he was ready to snatch her out of harm's way at the slightest provocation. With a smile, Scully took his hand and laid it on the sheets.

"Are you experiencing any pain?" Carlisle asked her, monitoring the readouts from her machines with a practiced eye. Idly, Scully wondered how long he had been a surgeon.

"No, I'm fine," she answered the doctor. "Whoever set the cast must have been an expert. I don't feel anything."

"That would be Carlisle," said Alice. "He's taken care of you since we called the ambulance to come and get you."

"What?"

"Dana, you were found lost in the woods with a crazed serial killer! When we saw you lying in the trees we called everybody! Agent Mulder got there first, as I'm sure you could predict."

"But-"

Alice's eyes were locked on Scully in warning. Ever so subtly, she titled her head backwards, and Scully looked past her to the door. She understood in a second: behind Jasper, who had just come in, a curious nurse had poked her head into the room. "Alice, I can't thank you all enough," Scully said immediately, covering up her slip as smoothly as she could.

"Is there something you need, Sarah?" asked Carlisle, directing his diamond-like smile at the nosy nurse. After a moment of the typical reaction to the handsome doctor, the nurse made a mumbled excuse and darted off.

Once Sarah's unwelcome footsteps had faded, Alice dropped her bouncy facade. "Oh, Dana, I'm so sorry," she said, wringing her dainty hands, causing the four rings on her left hand to clank together. "I couldn't see him fast enough, and then your shoulder. I'm a terrible person. I'm a terrible pyschic. I'm just so sorry."

_Terrible...pyschic? She did just say pyschic?_ "You-you're a psychic?"

"I have visions of the future." Before Scully could interrupt, Alice rushed on. "No, really, I do. I'll prove it. When you and Fox came here, I saw you both getting murdered by Hughes. I could see you getting brutalized when your car broke down-that's why Jasper and I went out to meet you-and then Fox got killed trying to find your body."

"That sounds like Mulder," Scully muttered.

"That doesn't prove anything," Mulder said, but he sounded as if he did believe Alice. That was no surprise to Scully.

Jasper broke in unexpectedly. "Yes, it does, because I got a picture of Hughes by Scully's car." Without waiting for a reply, he pulled out his phone, thumbed through a folder, and crossed the room to show the screen to Mulder. Mutely Mulder examined the photo, then showed Scully.

It was the killer, all right; unmistakably so. He was tall, blond, and pale, and he had something small and metal in his hand that Scully recognized as a syringe. And he was unquestionably standing feet from the borrowed car, just concealed by the trees. Scully dropped the phone onto the bed, feeling a bout of vertigo coming on.

"And remember, Dana, I told you to take Carlisle with you after the autopsy?" Alice persisted.

"Yes, I-" Scully sat up. "Do you mean to say you _knew_ I was going to-that we were going to-"

"I did," Alice said. "Only you ran away. I couldn't see that because Sam Uley was spying on you from the hotel and I can't see anything when he's around."

This whole sordid plot was spinning out of control. Vampires, psychics...Before long Sam Uley would come around and say he was Cheif Wolf of his tribe. Scully needed to focus on facts, on questions. She stared at Jasper. "If you knew all this time who was killing these women, why didn't you tell someone? Chief Swan, or one of us?"

"We couldn't," Alice said. "We didn't have any proof except for my visions and Edward's observations. We never caught him at it."

"I did," Carlisle said, and in his voice there was something that disturbed Scully more than Alice's psychic claims. When she looked to him, the doctor was standing with his arms crossed, calm, or determined to remain calm. Scully tried to forget the image from the day before, of Carlisle pinning Graeson Hughes one-handed to a tree. "I was there the night he killed Lily Maris. I was watching over Bella for Edward-"

Alice shushed Scully with, "Edward's ridiculously overprotective. Just listen, Dana."

"-when he dragged Maris's body into the Swan's yard." Carlisle shook his head. "She was already dead or I would have saved her and dealt with Hughes, then and there."

"I would have killed him."

Scully started. Where had Edward come from? Now he was leaning against the doorframe, too relaxed for the statement he had thrown at two FBI agents. Still, Scully knew he was dead serious. The glint of a reformed killer screamed at Scully from Edward Cullen's eyes, chilling her despite the warm blanket across her lap. "I would still kill him," Edward told Mulder. Mulder turned his face away.

"How old are you, Edward?" Scully said. "Really."

Edward did not looked surprised at this question. However, he glanced at Carlisle before answering. Scully could see the two of them communicating silently. "I'm seventeen."

Scully snorted. _Seventeen her eye_. "No seventeen year-old I've ever seen promises murder like that, Edward."

"She knows," Mulder said. "Scully figured it out before I did, way before. It just took her scientific sensibilities time to adjust." When the Cullens didn't respond, he rolled his eyes. "Tell her, Edward."

Edward shrugged. "I was born in 1901. I nearly died in the Spanish Influenza. Carlisle found me and saved me."

Scully's brain was running around in circles like a chicken with its head cut off, but her mouth worked quite rationally. "You're not human," she said calmly.

"Nope." The fifth Cullen shouldered his way past Edward, a grin spreading across his face. "Emmett Cullen," he said, offering his hand to Scully. "We haven't met formally."

"You're vampires."

"Yep," said Emmett, popping the 'P' without shame. "You're quick, Agent Scully. Or maybe Carlisle landing in a Spiderman crouch on the road gave it away?"

"It did, somewhat." Scully was shocked to find that Emmett's flippant treatment of his family's curse made it easier to discuss.

"Carlisle," Emmett said with a sigh. "He can't resist showing off."

"Emmett, this is _so_ not the time for that," said Alice. "Dana nearly got killed yesterday."

"I know, and I'm really sorry...that we didn't kill that animal when we had the chance." Emmett bared his teeth and Scully automatically shrank back from him.

"Go away, Emmett!" cried Alice, shoving him backwards.

Scully felt it was time to clear the air. "If you're expecting us to scream and run in horror, don't," she told Carlisle. "I, unfortunately, have seen stranger things than you in my career."

"Wow, you must have an _awful _job," said Emmett.

"Mulder and I are actually assigned to a collection of cases called The X-Files. We investigate any case that has traces of the...bizarre about it."

"And so that's why you were assigned to the Forks Killer," said Carlisle. "You already suspected supernatural beings were involved?"

Scully sighed. "I didn't, Mulder did."

"I was right, just not in the way I originally thought," Mulder said tiredly. Scully had rarely seen him so exhausted. He seemed ready to sink down onto the sheets at any moment.

"So, you're-" Scully swallowed, "vampires. Now, tell me what happened after I passed out. And, not to be rude, but please make it quick. I think a prolonged explanation might send me over the egde."


	39. Chapter 39 How It All Went Down?

**Author's Note: Well, well, here we are again, friends! Except this time I'm exploring new territory. This chapter focuses more on events that happened months before the actual beginning of Post Mortem, so I hope everyone's okay with that. I know several of you want to know what happened after Scully passed out, but I don't think I'm going to go into detail about it; it's just not that interesting. However, stick with me! This chapter is pretty interesting, if I do say so myself. :)**

**Enjoy!**

**P.S.-I will be giving a little more info on how things turned out after Mulder gave Scully to Carlisle. Just not a lot. **

39. How It All Went Down?

"I bet you can guess at most of it," Mulder said, with a grim smile. "What do you think _I_ did?"

"Went insane, refused to let anyone touch me, ran for the road," said Scully almost without pause. Mulder's freakouts were frighteningly easy to predict; she had witnessed enough of them to make her own psychological profile about him. Scully figured her partner was one third neurotic, two-thirds well-meaning paranoid. Although, looking back on what she had just been through, paranoia was justifiable. Highly justifiable.

"You probably pulled a gun at some point," added Scully after a moment. "Didn't you?"

"Not on Carlisle," said Mulder. "On Sam Uley, before we found you. I knew he had information, so I went to his house and grilled him. He told me he had seen you with Carlisle less than two hours before you went missing. He then told me he knew you were in the woods. I don't know how he knew that, but it turned out to be true. We caught up to the Cullens only minutes after they found you and Hughes." Unconsciously, Mulder's hand returned to its hovering position over Scully's leg.

"He was wrong about _us_," Alice told Mulder sharply. "We never hurt Dana, and that dog was convinced we were behind all these barbaric killings."

"Not to be rude, but..." Scully bit her lip. "Um, you're vampires. It's not such an extraordinary conclusion."

"Oh, no, I never said it was, but I just wanted to point out that Sam Uley didn't have the whole story straight. Just in case he comes by later with a different story from ours," Alice elaborated in answer to Scully's inquiring look. "If it hadn't been for us-sorry, Dana-you would still be lying on that forest floor, and Sam Uley is reluctant to concede that point."

"This isn't a contest about who saved whom, Alice," said Edward, rather impatiently.

While Alice shot him a contemptuous scowl, Mulder took up his story again. "Once I knew the Cullens really were helping you, Scully, I turned you over to Carlisle and he stabilized you while Alice called an ambulance. Edward and Jasper took care of Hughes. They just took him to my car on the reservation," he amended, seeing Scully's shocked face, "he's fine. He's in custody, locked up in Forks's most secure cell." Both Jasper and Edward gave dissatisfied grunts at this.

"Chief Swan was appalled when he heard what happened to you," said Carlisle quietly. "I was surprised that he didn't even once suspect us. I suppose, with the murderer in front of him, he couldn't rationally do so."

Scully was curious. "Why would he have ever suspected you?"

"For the same reasons Sam Uley did," said Edward. "We were connected to Bella's accident and we were involved with you two," he nodded between Mulder and Scully. "It looked questionable. But of course that was because Carlisle wanted to lead Dr. Scully right to Hughes."

Mouth ajar, Scully sat back against her headboard. "That's what you were doing?" she asked Carlisle, astonished. "You were implicating _yourself_ to make me look for a doctor?"

"It was a risky endeavor," Carlisle admitted, absently flipping the pen from his pocket between his fingers. The pen was crawling from one digit to the other so fast it appeared liquid.

"I'll say," said Scully, her indignation now rising, greater because his risky endeavor had paid off. "You stole my autopsy reports, you put them back modified-you did that on purpose, to get me to start thinking about a killer with medical knowledge? And then-the autopsy-"

"Everything my family had done up to that point was in preparation for a moment when I could tell you about Graeson," Carlisle supplied, with a brief, humorless smile. "The autopsy was a perfect opportunity. I'm sorry we had to use so much espionage-"

"No," Scully said quickly, shaking her head, "never apologize, Carlisle. You saved my life. You've given his victims revenge. Your methods of informing me were a little infuriating, I'll grant you that, and highly unorthodox-"

"I know, right?" broke in Emmett. "I think the old man's watched a little too much James Bond."

"We had to break it to you gently, Dana," said Alice. "Your mind is closed to our very existence. How were we going to tell you we were vampires leading you to a murderer who thought he was a vampire? We had to be careful not to upset the applecart."

"You almost got arrested, you know," Scully told Carlisle.

"I do. It was a calculated risk."

Jasper spoke again, his inflection subdued. "Our lives are a calculated risk, Agent Scully. We've learned to live with taking chances with everyone around us. We don't take many, but Carlisle swore not to let Hughes get away."

"Which I thought was idiotic until we caught him," Edward snorted.

"Why didn't you stop Hughes before he killed another woman?" Scully did want to know, but she was more concerned with the way Mulder was staring at Edward, conveying some sort of message with his eyes. What was he doing?

"We wanted to, believe me," muttered Edward. He gave Mulder a miniscule nod, caught Scully staring, and directed his eyes to the window.

"There is a treaty we made with the Quileutes a long time ago that prevents us from harming humans," Carlisle said. "If we trespass on Quileute land, or kill or bite a human, we break the treaty. We knew Sam Uley would take action against us if we openly threatened Graeson."

That was just plain stupid, in Scully's book. "He's a murderer!" she exclaimed. "Surely the treaty allows for that!"

"It should, but it doesn't." Edward's mouth twisted. "It was technically Sam's job to eliminate Hughes before he hurt another person, but he was too busy tracking our movements to look for the real killer."

"To be fair, he thought _we_ were the killers," said Carlisle. "And we were taking a vested interest in the case, even going so far as to shadow FBI agents. We did look guilty."

"Carlisle, the vampire surgeon murderer," said Emmett dryly. "Don't make me laugh. Sam Uley is an idiot."

"Okay, okay, enough about Sam Uley, please," said Scully. So much for a short explanation. "I want to know more about Hughes." She had to fight off another bout of vertigo as she said the name. She beathed streadily through her nose and thought of how Hughes was safely waiting the hand of justice, far away from her or any other victim. "How did he...end up like this?"

The Cullens all looked to Carlisle, who at the moment was very interested in a spot just above Scully's head. He seemed to be lining up facts in his head, like an organic filing machine. Scully thought of how many years of trivia, meaningless and meaningful, must be stored inside the eldest Cullen's head. Her own brain reeled.

Carlisle's amber eyes settled on her, and he began to speak, his soothing voice running over Scully like balm. "I met Graeson Hughes a year ago in Seattle; I had traveled there for a seminar. He was good-natured but reserved, and he didn't ask me many personal questions. I think his unassuming manner made me too comfortable. Somehow, although I didn't know it then, he could see there was a great difference between me and human doctors. Unnoticed by me, he began to watch me, how I moved, what I did or didn't do, how I interacted with others. I don't know why it struck him so much more than any of the other doctors present, but it did."

Scully drank in the words as she watched the leader of the Cullens. Carlisle paused briefly before continuing his account. "Four months after the seminar, we needed to call in a pathologist to examine the body of a man who had died suddenly. Doctor Snow had called Graeson before and did so again. Offhandedly, I volunteered to assist him in the autopsy. I was interested in John Morgan's death; I had only seen him in the emergency room once so I thought it was rather suspicious that he had died. Little did I know, Graeson had spent a good deal of time dwelling on my behavior at the seminar. He must have formed a plan to determine who I was, or what I was, months before. So, during the autopsy, he purposefully dropped a critical instrument."

"You caught it," Scully said in wonder.

Carlisle sighed. "Yes, I caught it, against all probability. Right before it hit the tile. Graeson checked speed and reflexes off his list. I knew then that he was trying to find out what I was."

"Amazing," said Scully.

"It was," agreed Carlisle heavily. "The last time anyone had investigated me so thoroughly was in 1850, when I saved a miner from falling down a ravine."

Scully chose not to register the words 'in 1850'."But that wouldn't be enough evidence to convince him you were a vampire, would it?"

"Graeson's next strategy was to research legends about creatures with incredible speed, which led him to local Quileute stories of the Cold Ones. The next time he came to perform an autopsy, three months ago, he had narrowed his list of possibilities down to vampires or werewolves. So when he overheard Billy Black warning Chief Swan about letting Bella near Edward, whom he knew was my son, he must have put the clues together. After the autopsy he followed Bella to her house and watched her interact with Edward, who of course looked and acted as strangely as I did."

"I told Carlisle about Hughes following us," put in Edward darkly. "I didn't like it. I wanted to do something about it, but Carlisle said he would handle it."

"I handled it badly," said Carlisle. There was pain in his eyes; Scully sat forward, intent upon the doctor's youthful yet weary face. "The next time I saw Graeson I asked him why he had followed Bella Swan home. He did something then that suprised me so much I didn't know how to react: he pulled out a knife and cut his own arm open."

Scully gasped, but stopped herself from showing any more emotion than that. Finally, she had to ask. "...And then what happened?"

"Graeson told me he knew what we were. I didn't answer and I didn't respond to the blood, which frustrated him. His whole scheme might have died out then if..." Carlisle trailed away suddenly.

"If I hadn't have shown up at Carlisle's office right then," said a feminine voice from the door.


	40. Chapter 40 Too Much Information?

**Author's Note: We probably have two to three chapters left, my dear readers! Aren't you excited! I am! **

**I'm not sure about this chapter, but I hope you like it. Please know that I'm not a psychologist and anything I say regarding mental health is probably not true. In other words, don't sue me. ;)**

**Enjoy!**

**Song: The Royal Wedding by George Fenton .com/watch?v=C8tA-XKASGQ**

40. Too Much Information?

Scully looked up and froze: standing in the doorway, her statuesque figure rigid and uncompromising, stood a woman so beautiful Scully died a little inside. Being in the same room with her did nothing for another woman's self esteem, that was certain; Scully became aware of her bedhead and the tubes and strips of hardened linen bedecking her body. She did her best not to blush.

"You've got to understand something, Agent Scully," said the woman, her dark eyes cool. "Not all of us have Carlisle's control. Most vampires can't stand anywhere near a bleeding human without being overcome." She uncrossed her arms and crossed them again, and it occurred to Scully that this earthly goddess was nervous. Nervous, perhaps, at being examined by a room full of attentive listeners? Scully nearly laughed at the thought. This woman was used to attention.

"The blood pouring from Hughes's arm was too much," the woman said curtly, shaking her golden hair away from her cheeks. "I gave us away and tried to attack him. Carlisle stopped me before I got too far, but it was too late: I'd told Hughes what we were." She didn't move from her place in the doorway as she lifted her chin, unfriendly but pretending to be civil. "I'm Rosalie, by the way. Rosalie Cullen."

"Um..." Scully lifted an eyebrow. "Nice to meet you."

"I told Uley our conditions," Rosalie told Carlisle cryptically, and then she spun and was gone. It was clear that she did not want to speak with FBI agents about anything.

"Rose is a tough nut to crack," said Emmett. He shrugged apologetically and gave Scully a smile. "Don't take it personally."

"I didn't," said Scully.

"Unfortunately..." Inexplicably, Carlisle looked to Mulder before continuing.

"Our agreement still stands," Mulder said. "Don't worry."

Well, this was news to Scully. "_What_ agreement?" she asked under her breath.

"I'll tell you later," answered Mulder just as quietly.

"Rosalie's attack on Dr. Hughes was a little more aggressive than she lets on," said Carlisle. "I almost couldn't stop her..."

"From killing him," said Scully, to hurry things along. She made sure her voice was neutral even though she felt pinpricks all over from the idea. Disgust, revulsion, and a desire to take the alcohol swabs on the bedside table and wash herself all over with them filled Scully. She wanted to decontaminate her ears in particular.

"I think that near-death experience in the office pushed Graeson over an edge he had already been walking for some time," said Carlisle, and Scully was marginally suprised to hear pity in the doctor's voice. "What I didn't know when I met him was that his fiance from college had been killed in a manner very similar to the ways in which vampire victims are often found: mutilated or burned beyond recognition. Graeson had always been obsessed with finding her killer-"

"You think he linked her death back to you? The Cullens?" blurted out Scully.

Carlisle looked down as Edward and Alice exchanged significant glances. "Sherry Carlisle was found dead outside her apartment in Seattle, four miles from the hospital in which Graeson worked."

"Sherry _Carlisle_," Scully said faintly. "Oh my word."

"So you mean to tell me," Mulder said, "that this entire spree-three brutal killings and a murder attempt-were the result of a tragic love story?" The blistering scorn was evident in his delivery. Scully felt like whacking him with her cast, considered the pain she would feel from the impact, and decided to freeze him out with a glare instead.

"No," Edward said, "it wasn't the fiance that did it. She was the beginning, and Carlisle's name was just the icing on the cake. This man was living with an obsession for over ten years, and Rosalie's attack sent his mental health into a death spiral."

"It wasn't really about vampires at all," concluded Scully. The gears in her head were grinding into place. "Hughes was just trying to reenact his fiance's death. But why, then, become a vampire? He was so convinced he was one of you..."

"You forget, when you kill enough," said Jasper into the silence. "It doesn't matter anymore why you're doing it. It becomes part of you. For some people, one kill is all it takes. For others..." He would not meet anyone's eyes. "Seems like it only took one kill for Graeson Hughes to lose himself."

"Lose himself?" repeated Mulder incredulously. "The man was insane! He strangled women! He mutilated their corpses! He _drank their blood_!"

"Yes, but it wasn't _him_ doing those things," said Jasper. "It wasn't Graeson Hughes."

"Hughes forgot himself and became what he most hated," mused Scully, marveling at the turn of events.

Jasper nodded. "In essence, Dr. Scully, he became Carlisle."

Carlisle? Scully did a double take. "No, what? You said he was recreating his fiance's death-"

"And Hughes thought Carlisle or one of his family members killed her," Jasper said. "It made sense because Hughes didn't know about nomads-"

"Tell you later," Scully told Mulder, who had opened his mouth.

"-and so we were the only logical choice to commit a vampire murder," concluded Jasper on dark note. "We're the only coven around, no one else has claimed Seattle, and one of us had a good reason to visit a hospital blocks from her apartment."

A small silence fell between the seven of them. During Jasper's speech Carlisle's face had grown more and more grave, aging him years in seconds. Scully could now see what she had not before in the seemingly youthful doctor: years, decades, and, if she searched along his brow and into his eyes, perhaps centuries. She could tell the stress of the last week had taken quite a toll on the man, and Scully felt a sudden urge to offer Carlisle a seat. To maybe dump Mulder into the squashed plastic chair and make room for the doctor at the foot of her bed.

Well, even if that wasn't a viable option, Scully thought dryly, there was one thing she could do for Dr. Cullen. In a gentle tone she rarely brought out, Scully began."Carlisle," she said, "I want you to know that none of this is your fault. Dr. Hughes was already fighting some kind of battle, an illness, before he ever met you. To blame yourself for any of this is illogical. You nearly exposed yourself and your family to save those women, you've given your whole life to serve people who probably don't even have the same genetic code as you!" Scully's voice had turned a bit strangled at the end, but she pressed on. "I understand now..."

At the moment, Scully felt as if there wasn't anyone else in the room except Dr. Cullen and herself. For once she was not distracted by his inhuman beauty or his lightning-fast intellect; she was meeting him on a level above physicality. As she stared into the doctor's honey-colored eyes the word 'vampire' stopped being 'monster' and became something different entirely.

"You're a hero, Carlisle," Scully said, smiling.


	41. Chapter 41 Mulder

**Author's Note: Well, here we are, readers, here we are! Close, close, close to the end! Should I add another 'close' for dramatic effect? Probably not; I think I killed it. :D This is a brief Mulder POV that is, sort of, the closing to the story. However, I plan to have two or three more chapters which will provide a little more closure, I hope. This one was just to wrap up the plotlines. **

** Now, dear readers, here is where I want your help: please tell me if there is something specific you would like me to answer in the next chapter. I have already begun work on my Epilogue (yes, we're that close!), but I would really like to know if you feel like I should elaborate more on one thing or another. I will answer the questions as best I can in the form of another chapter. **

**I can't believe this is almost over. o.o**

**Song: Say (All I Need) by OneRepublic ** .com/watch?v=GuRj7VS2shM&feature=fvst **(kind of melancholic, but hey, it's Mulder)**

**Enjoy!**

41. Mulder

The Cullens exited the hospital room soon after their discussion of Hughes, leaving a fatigued Scully in their wake. Mulder ushered them out and stood with them for a moment in the hall. Glancing back into the hospital room before stealthily blocking the doorway, he shut Scully out of the conversation. "I take it you've settled things with Sam Uley, then?" Mulder asked Carlisle, who nodded. "You reinstated the treaty?"

"We both decided that, as far as we're concerned, it was never broken," the eldest Cullen said. "We've really come out of this ordeal remarkably intact." Mulder noticed that Carlisle had not lost the care-worn look adopted during his analysis of Hughes. For some reason it bothered him more than it did a minute ago; maybe because of Scully's declaration about the vampire doctor. Despite the fact that he had seen Carlisle save Scully's life firsthand, he had not actually thought about the doctor that way, as something other than...well, a vampire.

Mulder snorted. A vampire doctor: if he ever met another one, he would eat his badge. If the doctor didn't eat him first, that is.

"You said our agreement still stands, Agent Mulder," said Carlisle, "and for that I'm grateful. We do appreciate it more than you know, and I will uphold it to the best of my ability."

"I hate to be rude," said Alice, sweetly showing her teeth, "but _what _agreement are you talking about, Carlisle?"

"When Carlisle and I took Scully back to the hospital we made a deal," said Mulder. His recent thoughts on Carlisle made him spare the doctor the pain to explain. "I promised I would keep you vegetarians under wraps as long as Carlisle agreed to assist me and Scully in further cases involving...certain _suspicious_ circumstances."

"Suspicious being vampire-related," said Emmett. The huge vampire seemed to have dropped most of his jovial mode after leaving Scully's bedside. Mulder suspected the morbid joking had been entirely for her benefit, and if that was the case...he was starting to grow quite fond of the man.

"Bingo," Mulder answered Emmett. "I asked for help with autopsies, insider information, and tracking the killer. Carlisle met the terms, as you might have guessed."

"Well, why wouldn't he?" Emmett rolled his eyes as Edward laughed. "It's not like you're going to find that many marauding vampires, Mulder. It's a pretty safe deal for us."

"Let's hope so," Mulder said. He fought back a shudder as he remembered the fire in Edward Cullen's eyes, the vampire's face changed from boy to killer in seconds. Predictably, Edward's laugh was cut short as he picked up on Mulder's thoughts.

"That must by why no one has linked Hughes's attack on Agent Scully back to us," Jasper said slowly. "You and Carlisle told them that cover story, the one about us finding her and Hughes in the woods. I thought that was your idea," he told Alice in surprise.

"No, I just picked up on the details from my visions." Alice tapped her temple and winked at Mulder. "It comes in handy, really, being able to sense the future." Mulder tried not to act too impressed, but most likely failed.

"So, you going to tell the lady doc about this arrangement?" Emmett asked the two negotiators with a sly grin.

"I really must return to my office," said Carlisle, not so smoothly evading the question by gliding off down another hall. This left Mulder with the force of Emmett, Edward, and Alice's curious eyes. Jasper seemed not to care about the question.

"Of course I'll tell Scully," Mulder lied. When Edward raised an eyebrow he added, "When the time's right, which it's not now. I'd say Scully has had enough exposure to vampires to be getting on with, hasn't she, Emmett?"

"Yes," said Jasper quietly, and he began to walk.

"Yeah," Emmett agreed, as the other Cullens followed Jasper down the hall. "But don't forget, Agent Mulder: we weren't the killers she had to worry about."

On that cryptic note, the football player-sized vampire caught up with his retreating family. "Tell us when Dana's feeling better," Alice called from the front of the pack. "I want to say goodbye before you two head back to Washington!"

"I will," Mulder promised, without really knowing why. Once the vampires had rounded a corner he returned to Scully's room, taking a seat by her bed. She had fallen asleep during his conference with the Cullens, and her head was now titled at a sharp angle onto her headboard. Mulder leaned forward and gently aligned her neck, sliding a little more pillow under her skull. Then he straightened her sheets, because he had nothing else to do.

Stroking the fuzzy blankets, Mulder did his best not to think about the past forty-eight hours, but the images kept slamming into him, reappearing in his mind. The fact that he had slept a total of six hours in two days made him lay his head on Scully's mattress. Buried in the light blue wool, his eyes closed. Mulder sighed.

His last thought before sleep was: how many times in his career would he be here, at Scully's bedside, just thankful that she was alive? And thankful to the man who had helped save her, human or not?

"Thank you," mumbled Mulder, from deep within a dream.


	42. Chapter 42 In Other News

**Author's Note: I tried my hand at some dramatic irony this time around! **

**All right, friends, this chapter marks the "official" end of Post Mortem; however, THERE ARE TWO MORE CHAPTERS COMING. However, these last two chapters are more like an extended epilogue than anything else. I think you'll like them, so please keeping reading! I decided to put my parting speech in this little 719-word bit anyway. :)**

**Thanks so much to all my readers! A special thanks to EmeraldStar73, catharticone, Gocto-Hostapus, and the anonymous reviewer Foggy: you were my most consistent reviewers, and some of you corresponded with me throughout the story. I was so encouraged by you all! There really is no other feeling than the one a writer receives from praise for their work (if you'll allow me to call myself a writer). :)**

**Song: Running Just to Catch Myself .com/watch?v=RXNg6gLumiY (it reminds me of a certain assistant director...)**

**Enjoy! **

42. In Other News

Assistant Director Skinner made his was way down the hall of Forks's only hospital, disgruntled and soaking wet from the downpour that had considerately waited until he had stepped out of the taxi to crash down from the sky. Shaking out the leg of his pants as he walked, Skinner made a list of all the reasons why it would have benefited him if Fox Mulder had never joined the FBI.

First, Mulder had left that message about murderers and arresting murderers and _being_ murdered. Then, there had been another staticky message an hour or so later on Skinner's cell phone, telling him not to come to Washington and that_ Mulder _was all right but _Scully_ was in the hospital and so Mulder was going to be with her. Then Skinner had looked up at a television in the airport and seen reporters swarming all over Forks, Washington where, according to a newscaster, a "brutal attempted murder on a federal agent" had just taken place.

Well, naturally he would have been able to just forget the whole thing, Skinner thought sarcastically as he read hospital room numbers. One of his agents had appeared on the news under the heading "brutal attempted murder," so of course he could follow Mulder's instruction. No problem.

Right.

It had taken Skinner almost two days to straighten out the situation in Forks with the Bureau. By the time he could come to Washington himself, Scully might have been dead from her injuries and Mulder might have gone on a vigilante revenge mission. Mulder had not called Skinner since the night of the attack, and he was very interested to know...just about everything regarding the case.

When he located Scully's room, however, Skinner found Scully fast asleep, swathed in blankets and surrounded by machines and wires. Mulder was sleeping with his face sunk into the edge of Scully's bed, his torso slumped into a position sure to give him a backache later. One of Mulder's hands was clasped tightly around Scully's. Even in his high dudgeon, Skinner couldn't find it in himself to wake the agents up.

Wanting very much to slam the door on his way out, Skinner shut it gently instead. He scowled at a passing nurse, who traded him an offended frown. Skinner leaned against the wall and rubbed his head. Mulder had probably planned to be asleep at the exact moment he arrived in the hospital. The man was just difficult.

Difficult, Skinner reasoned to himself, but not impossible. Mulder was a dedicated agent, as was Scully. It was too bad they were only interested in cannibals and aliens, though. When Scully had been assigned to the X-Files, everyone, Skinner included, had hoped she would inject some sense into Mulder, maybe talk him out of spending his time and talent on a dead-end job like UFO hunting. No one had expected Mulder to convert Scully to the Martian Cause.

_C'est la vie_, Skinner supposed. That was what they got for entrusting a brilliant young doctor to a spooky ghost buster. And the best and worst thing about the two agents was their adherence to each other, their solidarity. Where Scully was, there was Mulder also. It made the two one of Skinner's favorite teams-but he would reveal that fact only under torture, or if he wanted to lose his position.

He was glad Scully was alive, Skinner admitted, scratching absently at his chin. She controlled Mulder in a way no other human could. It was almost mystical, like a snake charmer's tricks. She was really the only one keeping Mudler from going completely AWOL. And even with her around he never answered his phone, not even for the assistant director of the FBI...

With another scowl, Skinner pulled out the bag of pretzels he never got around to eating on the plane. Crunching into the first bite, he vaguely registered the doctor walking by as freakishly pale and casting him a perplexed look. Well, it was Washington; they got about two days of sun every year. And the perplexed look was a no-brainer: a man in a tan trench coat standing outside an FBI agent's hospital room? What could he _possibly_ be?

Locals, Skinner thought disparagingly, as the man rounded the corner. They were so clueless.


	43. Chapter 43 Loose Ends?

**Author's Note: One more chapter and then our thrilling tale will come to a close! Again, thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed. This chapter is sort of an epilogue to the story. Some of you might think this chapter and Chapter 44 are making room for a sequel. I feel obligated to say: I do _not_ plan to write a sequel to Post Mortem. I might write a couple more X-Files crossovers someday, but none that are directly connected to this story arc. **

**Thank you again, **

**TI-TI**

**Song: Still Alive by Luke Conard (sorry, no link, but it's on iTunes)**

**Enjoy! **

43. Loose Ends?

"Hey there, Mike," said Mark, deputy sheriff of the Forks police, as he came around a corner inside the station.

"Hey, Mr. Smith," muttered Mike Newton, shifting uncomfortably on the foldout chair beside the door.

"So..." Mark riffled through the papers on his desk in an oh-so-casual manner. "I hear you got caught outside the diner last night making spray paint..." he double-checked the report and had to bite his tongue, "_Unicorns_ on the dumpsters." His breath hitched from stopping the laugh bubbling up in his lungs. "I-is that true?"

"It was for a bet," said Mike in a voice that stated he would rather be caught painting _anything_ other than unicorns on _anything_ but dumpsters. "And it was green spray paint. I was hoping it wouldn't show up."

"Well, Mike, you do realize that you were apprehended while defacing private property?" There was nothing bubbly about Mark's manner now; he was all business. "That's vandalism, Mike, and you were caught in the act. We're going to have to put this on your record."

"I understand, sir," mumbled Mike, ashamed.

"Okay, good. I'm going to straighten out your papers today and I'll call your folks tomorrow to inform you all of the situation. You're free to go for now."

"Thank you, sir." As Mike rose, he seemed to wrestle for a moment with himself, then said in a rush, "Deputy Mark, please don't tell Chief Swan about this. I'm Bella's friend, and I don't want him to think-"

"Oh, yeah, I get it, Mike." Mark grinned. "But Chief Swan's my superior officer. I'm going to have to consult him about this unicorn painting affair."

"Unicorn painting?" Chief Swan spoke up from the doorway to the station. He shrugged out of his coat and handed Mark a fresh styrofoam cup of coffee. "Was that you at the diner, Mike?"

Mike's crestfallen expression served to heighten the two police officers' amusement. "That was me, sir."

"Mmmm..." Chief Swan tapped a finger to his chin. "I see. Well, sorry, kid, but you wouldn't have had much of a chance with her, anyway."

"H-huh?" Mike looked even more worried after that hanging statement.

"Nevermind, nevermind." Chief Swan waved a hand. "Get out of here, Mike."

Scully came out from the inner room of the police station, laughing, as the door swung shut behind the wanna-be vandal. "I wish I got to arrest people who dared to defile trash cans with mythical creatures."

"Oh, we've got some yahoos around here, as you know," said Chief Swan, and Scully winced. The double meaning in his words sunk in too late. "Um, uh, I just meant-" stammered the police chief, turning red. "That's not what-"

"No harm done," said Scully, to ease the tension in the room. "I mean it, Chief," she added, noticing his mental forehead-slapping. "Bygones are bygones."

"We've got the last of those reports, Agent Scully," said Mark brusquely, tossing a thick file onto the desk. "Chief Swan scoured every single database for all the information we could get. The trial's in six months."

"Six months?" repeated Scully, taking the file and opening it with jittery hands. "That was fast."

It had been roughly five months since she had last stood in this police station. It had been three o'clock in the morning; Bella swan had vomitted all over the floor. So much had happened since then, in and out of Forks, she had trouble wrapping her mind around it. Unconsciously, she lifted her shoulder in a tentative upward motion; she imagined she could feel the pins scraping against her bone, muscles, and ligaments.

Five months later, and she still had vestiges of Hughes's assault embedded in her body. Scully shuddered, but her fingers tightened on the manilla cover as she defiantly read the top paper. It was a sheet detailing the nature of the investigation and its reasons for being installed. At the very top was a pencilled-in title: FORKS KILLER FILES.

"Say, Agent Scully, I think I have some more reports on Hughes back here I forgot to file."

Really? That was his best excuse for getting her alone? Scully shut the folder and gave Chief Swan a brief smile. "I guess we should go take a look, then."

Once they were safely entrenched within another room, Chief Swan started in. "Look, Dr. Scully, this has just got to be said. I-I really feel...I feel partly responsible for your ordeal that night. No," he shook off her protest, "I don't want you to blow it off. Please. It's my job to keep everyone in Forks from harm. I failed you. I'm sorry. There," he exhaled, "I said it."

So that's what had been bothering him. Scully had wondered why the police chief had acted like he had been electrocuted every time she walked by. "Chief Swan," Scully said, touched, "I appreciate your dedication to your work, but there was nothing you could have done. I got in a wreck and panicked. It was all my fault."

"No, it wasn't. Excuse me, Agent Scully, but that's an awful thing to say. You were the victim, here."

"So was Dr. Hughes," said Scully, before she could stop herself. Then she hit herself on the forehead, literally. "Wait, Chief Swan; I didn't word that correctly. I didn't mean to imply the police were-"

"We're walking on eggshells, aren't we?" laughed Chief Swan unexpectedly. "Ah, to heck with it, Dr. Scully. Let's just be politically incorrect. Deal?"

"Deal," said Scully, relieved. "Do you feel the need to shake on it?"

"That won't be necessary."

From that point on their conversation was free and easy. Scully filled Chief Swan in on the FBI's interest in the Forks Killer, and he in turn related the nitty gritty of the arrest, the over-blown local press coverage, and the first meeting between Hughes and his only relative, Sandra, with his identity as the Forks Killer made known.

"She was good about it," said the chief, clearly impressed. "She didn't make a fuss, but I could see she was about to have a nervous breakdown right then and there, so I gave her a coffee and told her to take it slow. Seems like a nice girl," he continued sadly, "and I think Hughes was a good brother to her. She made it through the whole meeting without crying, but as soon as he went back to his cell she came unglued. She's only twenty-one, you know."

"I didn't," said Scully, feeling her chest tighten. "This must be so hard on her."

"Yeah, I can't imagine finding out someone so close to me turned out to be a killer." Scully shifted uncomfortably as Chief Swan took a sip of his own coffee, probably to fill the silence more than to hydrate himself. "So those reports are good enough for you guys at the FBI, right? I tried to be as thorough as I could. Of course, I know we've got enough proof to put him away, but I want to make sure I followed procedure."

"These look perfect," said Scully, doing her best not to lay it on too thick but flattering him nonetheless.

"Nah, they're nothing. Hey, Agent Scully," said Chief Swan, "where's Mulder?"

"Hm-hm?"

"Agent Mulder, your partner?"

"Oh," Scully said, pretending to be deeply engrossed in the reports. "LaPush, talking to Sam Uley. It turns out Uley came around and told Mulder everything he knew. They're friends, now."

"Oh." Chief Swan looked surprised. "That's...um."

"Yes, I know, funny." And Scully smiled without shame, looking as innocent as can be. It _was _funny to think that, should he want to check Mulder's alibi, Chief Swan would not find him anywhere near the reservation. "Oh, Chief, would you mind making me two copies of this report?"

Predictably, the chief's jaw dropped. "The whole thing?"

"The FBI likes to be thorough and keep several extra copies of cases such as these." She was lying through her teeth, but was certain Chief Swan was too much of a hands-on officer to keep up on FBI protocol.

"Um..." The police chief took the heavy pile of papers from Scully with a glum set to his mouth. "Sure, Agent Scully. No problem."

"Thank you so much," said Scully, and as Chief Swan shuffled off to the copy machines, she pulled out her phone. Her fingers pressed in the keys to form a text:

_Swan kept busy for_

_at least 40 min. _

_Make it quick. _

_I'll be here._

The answer came back promptly, a large text obviously written on a keyboard phone, not Mulder's shabby flip-out.

_Roger that. We_

_are almost done here._

_Thanks for holding _

_the fort, Dana; we owe _

_this freedom to you. _

Scully typed back a simple, "No problem." A moment later, another text popped up on her screen. It was short, laconic, and very welcome.

_We have him. _

_Feel free to leave_

_at your convenience._

She was still amazed at them, despite the fact that she had seen them in action. It was possible no mortal could ever be accustomed to them, except perhaps for one clumsy, brown-haired daughter of a police chief. She answered the text:

_Will wait for a_

_min. to make sure_

_we're clear. But_

_I'm sure we are_.

The reply came back within a minute.

_Of COURSE_

_we're clear. This_

_is us you're _

_talking about,_

_Dana. :)_

And another one appeared seconds after the last.

_Carlisle had his_

_movements down._

_We got 'im!_

Well, she didn't need the little white letters at the top of her screen to tell her whose text that was. Only Mulder would say, "We got 'im!", just as only Alice Cullen would use all caps to emphasize her confidence. She typed one last message:

_Everyone's all _

_right?_

But before she could send it Alice had answered her.

_Not a scratch on_

_any of us, Dana. _

_I can't speak for_

_the nomad, though._

Scully sighed and closed the texting window. She allowed herself a moment of calm-she really had been afraid Mulder would do something stupid and get his arm ripped off. Then she went back to her messages and carefully deleted every conversation bearing the name "Cullen."

The Cullens were her and Mulder's allies. In this unforgiving game with their superiors, they couldn't be too careful. In their pursuit for the truth, Scully was determined to hurt as few people as possible. And, although she was sure the Cullens would do more harm to the Big Guns than the other way around, she felt bound to protect them. Bound to protect other keepers of the truth.

When Chief Swan returned with the Forks Killer files, Scully shredded the autopsy report twice.


	44. Chapter 44 The Beginning

**AUTHOR'S NOTE AT BOTTOM :)**

44. The Beginning

Another whiff of smoke sailed into the air, dissipating quickly into the air-conditioned room. Three men were gathered about an antique table; one of them was careful to spatter the ashes from his cigarette as widely across his end as possible. "You said you did find something interesting about this case," the largest of the men said in a soft voice, while the man with the cigarette puffed away.

The third man in the room threw a manila folder onto the table. "This is from Agent Mulder's personal computer files," he said, his face shadowed by the oppressive yellow lamp hanging from the sagging ceiling. The large man lifted the cover, exposing the low-quality printer paper beneath. "I couldn't make anything of it, but I thought you might want to see it," the man offered indifferently.

Still sucking on his smoldering Marlboro, the smoking man began to read the file. It was a report dated several months after the Forks Killer case, an incident which had attracted too much attention for the FBI's liking. The file began in the usual mundane rhetoric of a technical report:

File: 467

Investigated by: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully

Assistant Investigator/ Coroner: Carlisle Cullen

Location: Olympic Peninsula, Washington

"Carlisle Cullen?" Another drag on the cigaratte created a pause in the smoking man's words. "We have several files on a man of that name."

"He keeps cropping up every few years," the third man said. "We only have bits and pieces, though. The man is impossible to trace thoroughly."

"And now he's allied himself with Agent Mulder," the smoking man mused, tapping the paper with a thin finger. "Not such a wise move for someone who wants to stay low-profile."

Fidgeting, the third man coughed into his sleeve. "Sir, the file explains their association with one another."

The smoking man nodded as his eyes found key sentences on the rough white paper. To his seasoned eyes they stuck out as though highlighted:

_Once we confirmed the death as murder we contacted _

_Carlisle Cullen_

_Dr. Cullen confirmed the bites were human_

_...a case of a vampire attack _

_...just outside Seattle we apprehended a male, caucasion; the Cullens called him a nomad_

_we dealt with the nomad through dismemberment and _

_cremation_ ;_ we disposed of the ashes in the ocean_

_The victims' families have been told attacks were animal, and though it doesn't seem right to hide the _

_truth, I know in this case exceptions must be made, for everything._

_Ah_, _but who was Agent Mulder to decide what truth was? _The smoking man smiled. "You secured Agent Scully's account of this case?" he asked the third man.

"No, sir. There was no record of the case on her computer."

"None?"

"We checked deleted files and everything. Nothing."

"Then, as far as we're concerned, there was no case." With a final puff the smoking man threw the charred butt into a wooden ashtray on the end of the table. "I want more information on Carlisle Cullen," he said. "Anything you can find, electric and water bills included. Tax forms especially."

"Yes, sir. I'll start on that right away." With a deferential nod, almost a bow, the third man exited the room, narrowing down its occupants to two.

"We know very well who Cullen is," said the large man, with an amused lift to his lips.

Leaning back from the table, the smoking man pulled out another Marlboro and tapped it firmly against the pack. He took his time answering, using the pretense of lighting his cigarette to stretch out the seconds. "We know as much as he lets us know," said the smoking man quietly. "But I think it's time we really knew about this man."

_The truth, as Agent Mulder would say. _The smoking man inhaled sweet tobacco. _They needed the truth about the man named Cullen..._

"If he's a man at all," the smoking man finished. He shook loose the burnt end of the cigarette, and the ashes fell like black rain onto the stained oak table.

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE

**Author's Note: This is the final chapter for Post Mortem! I hope you all have enjoyed the collision of two worlds: the world of Mulder and Scully, FBI agents looking for the truth, and the world of the Cullens, vampires doing their best to hide it. I was very happy with the response this story received, since I know it is an odd crossover, and I have only you wonderful readers to thank for it!**

**For anyone interested: I am going to make POST MORTEM into a pdf file which you can download to your computer. This is for personal reading only! Please do not republish this story on another website without my explicit permission. I am sure none of my readers would abuse this pdf in any way, which is why I feel confident making it. :) If you would like a copy of Post Mortem in pdf form, please send me a private message and I will arrange a way to email it to you. **

**Also, I intend to put a Q & A session at the end of Post Mortem as a seprarate Author's Note, so if anyone has any questions I did not answer in the story, please PM me soon. I'm going to try to add an outtake or two to that AN as well, so it may take me a while to get it up there, but I will!**

**Again, thank you so much for your valuable time and encouragement, **

**TI-TI**

**Remember: The Truth Is Out There. **


	45. POST MORTEM EXTRA: Q AND A

**-The POST MORTEM Extras-**

Q and A

These are a combination of question/answer sessions I have had with readers about certain details in Post Mortem. I hope my answers will clear up any of the fogginess some parts of my chapters left behind. -TI

**Question:**

[In] Chapters 17-18, I'm still curious about the perfume scent. Were they smelling the scent of one of the Cullens who had been inside her room in chapter 17 and Sam's scent in chapter 18? I know Bella mentioned smelling Edward's and Jacob's scents in the books, but I don't remember anything where a human could detect the scent of a vampire/werewolf who had already left the room. Is Scully's FBI training making her more observant of such things or was there some other explanation about the scents?

**Answer:**

About the scent: Scully could smell Rosalie, who was assigned to guard Scully at night and intentionally put on sweet perfume to draw Scully's attention to the different scent of vampire and werewolf. Because Carlisle was orchestrating everything toward leading Scully to the idea of a vampire killer-essentially making her paranoid about any small detail-the Cullens wanted to make everything about themselves very obvious. They wanted to make sure Scully, a human, could figure out that they were not mortal men. I'm sorry if this didn't come across better.

**Question:**

Chapter 19: How did Hughes know about the wolves' border? Did he overhear the Cullens talking about it at some point? Had Hughes previously encountered Sam?

**Answer:**

Hughes was aware of the strange taboos of the Cullen/LaPush situation because he had been watching both Sam and Carlisle for a long time; probably up to a month. He had obsessively researched the Quileute legends. Aside from the actual parties involved, he knew as much about vampire/werewolf relations as it was possible to know. Remember, he also knew that Carlisle couldn't touch him because he was human. That's why he took risks such as cutting his arm and killing women on Cullen land. Somewhere in his unbalanced mind, he knew he was still human, and he used that to his advantage.

**Question:**

Chapter 27: Hughes seems to have a really strong sense of smell - is that just part of his psychosis, thinking he has a vampire-like enhanced sense of smell?

**Answer:**

Yes, you're exactly right; because Hughes believed he was a vampire, he believed he had special powers. He thought he could smell ten times as much as a human. Whether or not he actually could smell Scully's blood is debatable. It could have been a combination of several things, coincidences, that might contribute to that delusion. It's clear that Hughes lacked the important traits of a vampire: inhuman speed, super strength, and fast reflexes. It's safe to assume he really didn't have an acute sense of smell, either, but who knows? Honestly, I didn't really think I had to work the whole thing out because people could make their own conclusions. However, I hope it didn't mislead too many readers, either.

**Question:**

Chapter 36: How did the Cullens learn about Sam being a wolf? In New Moon, Alice seemed very surprised about the wolves and hadn't known about her inability to see them (thus thinking Bella was dead when she "disappeared" after jumping), and I'm pretty sure Edward told Bella he hadn't known about them when he left her...that he hadn't known that some of the Quileute boys had started phasing into wolves again. So I think something must have happened in your storyline, related to Hughes, that caused the Cullens to become aware of Sam before they met in chapter 36 since Carlisle showed no surprise and addressed Sam by name.

**Answer:**

Well. Let me see, here. I personally think that Sam became a werewolf around the time that Twilight was coming to an end; this is consistent with the timeline. I think Jacob says in New Moon that Sam became a werewolf around a year before he did? If that's the case, then Sam would have been a very new werewolf when Post Mortem takes place. I also think that, once it became clear that someone vampire-like was killing women in Sam's territory, he would come forward and threaten the Cullens with retribution. Therefore they would all know he was a werewolf. So, yes, I did change the timeline somewhat.

**Question:**

Chapter 37: Did Edward have to explain the "rules" to Bella earlier due to what was going on with Hughes? At the beginning of New Moon she seemed surprised to learn there were rules for vampires.

**Question:**

Regarding chapter 43: I'm having trouble figuring out why Scully needed to keep Charlie occupied while the Cullens took care of the nomad. Was the nomad right outside the station? Had Alice foreseen interference from Charlie?

**Answer:**

I put Mulder and Scully's first visit to Forks in late April or early May; Bella and Edward had not yet gone to prom. So yes, their second visit would be around early October, right smack in the middle of Bella's depression/zombie state. Great time to visit, huh?  
Going with this timeline, if Charlie had had any idea the Cullens were anywhere near Forks (it was just Carlisle and Alice, and maybe Jasper), he would have gone ballistic. Scully was there for damage control so he wouldn't get suspicious about Mulder's absence.

**Answer:**

Yes, that's a safe assumption to make. At the end of Twilight, however, Bella already knows some of the facts featured in Post Mortem: that there are nomad vampires, that the Cullens were worried about the effects of a nomad in their territory. But I did plan on the Cullens informing Bella about the rules of the Quileute treaty and the Volturi.

**Question:**

In chapter 2, I didn't "get" the Deep Throat reference. I kind of remember the character from X-files, but it's been a long time, and I'm not sure what that had to do with what was going on in chapter 2. Can you explain?

**Answer:**

Oh, the Deep Throat reference...It was the start of a way to break the chapters up into sections that I never followed through with in other chapters. The whole "subliminal message" thing was more my own private joke than an actual part of the story. Deep Throat, just for an FYI, was the character who was constantly informing Mulder and Scully about plots and such going on in the FBI. They never were quite sure who he was, but the audience knew he was very high up the command chain. ***Spoiler!***He died at the end of Season 3, I believe.

**Question:**

In chapter 1 where it said they were going to the Olympic Peninsula "again," I assume there was an X-files episode set there...can you tell me the episode name and/or what happened then?

**Answer:**

Okay, the original X-Files episode that takes place in the Olympic Peninsula is called "Darkness Falls." It's about a log camp infested with some strange prehistoric form of insect and it's quite creepy. 0.o I also took some inspiration from "The Jersey Devil" for my story; that episode features seemingly cannibalistic murders. Also, there is another episode devoted to vampires called "3." All of these can be found in Seasons 1 and 2.

**Question:**

Esme hasn't been in the story at all except that she was one of the "seven Cullens" present in chapter 36. I don't remember her being mentioned by name. Will we see her at all before the end?

**Answer:**

About Esme: You are right; she didn't take a major role in this story because I left her at home, managing the less exciting facets of the Hughes conspiracy. I imagined Esme keeping track of literally everything going on in Forks during the plot: she tracked Hughes, Scully, Mulder, and Sam; she found out where the FBI agents were staying. She did read about FBI protocol and she analyzed the Quileute treaty. In other words, she made sure Carlisle's risk would pay off.

If you'll recall, in Twilight, Esme was put in charge of following Victoria around Forks to see where she was going and how she was looking for traces of Bella's location. I thought that her role as tracker in Twilight could be translated into a central intelligence sort of job in Post Mortem.


	46. POST MORTEM EXTRA: RIGOR MORTIS

**Author's Note: Well, goodness, it's been about a month since I updated with any POST MORTEM extras! **

**Here's an interesting one for you now: the beginning of a sequel which I considered continuing...for about five seconds. XD Its title? RIGOR MORTIS. Oh, yes, so original. Sorry, guys, I just don't think there's ever going to be a chaptered sequel to PM. However, I do have a couple ideas for one-shots that I might compile into a ficlet. Or I might just stick them on as extras like I've decided to do with this little guy. **

**This piece was the prologue to RIGOR MORTIS. I hope it's sufficiently thrilling and chilling for my faithful readers. **

**Enjoy!**

New Twilight/X-Files Crossover: RIGOR MORTIS

Everything was new.

Everything had been new for some time.

Everything was brighter, clearer, more beautiful.

Even _she_ was more beautiful. As she passed by her reflection in a jagged mirror, she caught sight of her smooth white skin and her newly-made cheekbones. So beautiful. But so strange.

_Not right_, her mind whispered. She nodded and frowned at once, confused. She had been cofused for a long time, maybe days, weeks. She didn't know ever since her watch had broken. It was a watch, she knew that, and it had broken, she knew that too. It had stopped ticking out the hours once she'd smashed it against a windowpane on her way out.

She jumped from one roof to the next in a single leap. She didn't even give it a thought. Moving was easy now; she only had to twich and she was across a room. She smiled at her reflection, now presented to her from a glass skylight.

Three roofs over, the scent caught her. It came to her mid-jump, and she dropped from the air like a bomb, crashing to the street. The pavement cracked, but she did not. She landed in a crouch, smelling that delicious smell. It was a beacon and it called to her. It was so fresh. She took off into the night.

It was a male, she knew, walking out alone in the warehouses. Something inside her told her he was being foolish, but the rest of her didn't care; she knew what she needed from him. And she could not wait any longer. She needed him. She bared her teeth and lunged.

As the man screamed out one last cry, the little folded leather holder dropped from her pocket onto the concrete. While she finished her prey off and went on the hunt again, the unobtrusive little object sat, face-up, in the rain.

The object was a badge, and from its shiny plastic surface a face could be seen: a calm, collected woman with coppery-red hair and blue eyes. To the side of the picture were letters:

_Dana Scully, Special Agent. _

And, in still bigger characters:

FBI.


End file.
